Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby Days

Even when Xander was a preschooler I pictured him as a Cub Scout. His interests are nature, science, cooking and art. He likes to be the little helper. When he finished kindergarten, I couldn't wait to sign him up. And although I personally don't like the pack meetings (with 170 families it is too big, runs too long, and starts too late for a school night) -- Xander has, for the most part enjoyed his experience so far.

Enter the Pinewood Derby. Pinewood Derbies are car races of hand built wooden cars that are rolled down a track. The cars are the same weight (5 grams) and it is an exercise in aerodynamics and ingenuity. It is also something targeted at nine year olds. And thus the rub.

With the Pinewood Derby coming in January, Jonathan met the other Tiger Cubs (i.e. first graders) and their parents at a woodworking shop. There they created their cars out of a chunk of wood. Now by they, I mean the parents, since first graders and power tools could be a very messy mix. We then painted the car on New Years Day. Xander helped, but most of the painting was done by me. Then Jonathan attached the wheels and calibrated the weights. You get the point, Xander was barely engaged, and honestly never played with cars so had little interest in building one.

Pinewood Derby weekend was a whole production. The 70 or so cars were run 6 times each  (4 tracks) in the preliminary rounds and then the finalists were run more. All and all two and a half hours of intense racing. Meanwhile, parents were checking their watches, since it was playoff weekend, and everyone wanted to get home to watch the 49ers and Giants play.  And I noticed many of the kids lost interest and started playing video games. The event suffered from the same fate as our pack meetings, it is too large a group for events to be anything other than chaotic and bit boring (it takes a long time for everyone to get a turn). On the bright side, our den leader got feedback that our Tiger cubs were well behaved.

We are still on the fence on Cub Scouts. We like the smaller den meetings, camping trips and group hikes. But it has been a huge time commitment. This month alone, we have the blue and gold dinner, followed by a camping trip.  I'm more reticent to sign Caleb up this summer, even though he has expressed enthusiasm for it. Mostly we're feeling overcommitted ... but I don't think that will change until the boys head off to college.