Derby Day

Friday morning was "Derby Day" at Bennett's school. It was one of those big days that we found out about at the beginning of the year so all of the Dads could take off work for a couple of hours to be there. It was a big production! All of the Dads had to build their child a car made out of a box to "race" the other kids. Even though we have known about this for seven months, Steve didn't start it until this past Saturday.

Since Bennett's favorite color is pink, he decided to paint the car pink and go from there. He had several ideas, so he went to Michael's Craft store, spent an hour and a half, bought WAY too much stuff and then got started. Steve had envisioned Bennett helping with the car, but she quickly became bored with the painting aspect so he did it all. He put the final touches on the car Thursday night with the help of Bennett's coloring, and I must say it was very cute.

When we arrived at her school, we noticed many of the other cars were made from much smaller boxes. Since Bennett is known to complain a little (okay, a lot), we were worried that she would think her car was too heavy. Fortunately, she did okay with that aspect.

We all walked over to the large parking lot and all of the kids paraded around in their cars so we could all ohh and ahh over the unique creations and take lots of photos. Bennett did fine and gave us a half wave when she walked past. Then they lined all of the kids up on one side of the lot, according to class, with their Dads across the way from them. Bennett's class was set to race first, so when the flag fell they all started running. Well, everyone BUT Bennett. She gingerly walked over to Steve and then back. Even with all of the excitement and yelling, she wasn't motivated.

I guess we should be happy because a couple of the kids were so excited, they lost control and fell. I don't know whose bright idea it was to have a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds running across a parking lot (in shorts or dresses) with a large awkward box strapped around them, but disaster was plastered all over this. In fact, each class had a wipeout...some worse than others. I recall watching one little boy running so fast that he tripped, his large box fell forward and he actually didn't get hurt because the box hit the ground first and he kind of bounced back up....crazy!!

Anyway, it was a fun to see all of the little kids get excited to see their Dads at a school event. Bennett was especially excited to spend time with her Daddy there. After the race, we all walked back and had a picnic lunch on their playground. We laid out a large towel, took in the nice weather and then packed it up. All and all, derby day was a success, but I think we learned our lesson about a couple of things....next year, we'll use a smaller box and Bennett will be made to wear pants, just in case she gets the urge to actually run.