Cars & Basketball UPDATE!!

What an eventful weekend we had. Oh yes, I've got plenty of pics. I'm home today with Girl, I'll explain shortly. Let's start with Friday.

Friday was the weigh in for the Big Pinewood Derby. We dropped Girl off at basketball practice and headed over, car, weights, graphite, and coins in waiting for the pre-race day weigh. We were completely prepared and ready to add or remove weight if necessary. Thankfully, we didn't need to remove any weight. PC had bought some washers and weighed the car with them on it. It came in right at 5oz. It was a beautiful thing. We also passed the 3/4" track clearance. The PackMaster logged in that SmallBoy's car was official and we were ready to roll, no pun intended.

Saturday was a basketball day. Girl and her team were playing in a league with a constantly running clock and 5 minute quarters. She had gotten a ride to the game because PC and I were finishing up a nasty project that he, Girl, and I had started earlier. We did pretty good on time, but were still running a bit late. Thankfully, so was the game before hers. Once underway, the game got moving. The girls got shut out the first quarter 8-0, but in the second, came back to hold the other team to only 6 points, whereas, we scored 12. After half, the game was tied. A LOT of fouls led to the other team getting the bonus, shooting free-throws for every foul as opposed to just shooting fouls. Thankfully, the other team was not very good at free-throws, or the score would have been OUTRAGEOUSLY high - because we fouled them A LOT. Into the fourth quarter, the game got a little hairy and we were behind. The coach, as per the new school policy from too many parents complaining, rotated in the not-as-good players, and the score got run up a bit. He rotated back in the good players, including Girl. At 27seconds left, we were down by 4 and Girl had the ball on her way downcourt. She got tangled in a fight for a ball, got the ball swiped and, as a result, ended up hitting the floor. Unfortunately, the momentum threw her back and she pounded her head on the floor.

My tough little girl who usually will hold it in until after the game was in tears IMMEDIATELY. The coaches pulled her out and iced her head. The sound from her head sounded like a bowling ball being dropped on the lane. It was all I could do to sit there in the stands and not rush to the floor....which would have been breaking one of the primary rules of being a sports parent: Let the coaches handle it. After the game the coaches bought the whole team a snack and we started for home. On the way, however, the pain started hammering inside her head and she was feeling woosy. To be safe, we took her to the ER where they did a CAT scan and ruled out any bleeding or skull fractures. She was, ultimately, diagnosed with a concussion. Poor baby girl. Yesterday she went downtown, full of Tylenol, to go see Wicked with my SIL. She seemed ok when they left, but by the time they returned, Girl had a stiff neck (probably just sore from the fall). As the day progressed, she got worse and worse and ended up throwing up - which is typical for a concussion. She was just absolutely miserable and I felt SO helpless that all I could do was hold her when she was begging me to make the pain go away. She is home today and I'm taking her to the doctor in a half an hour for follow up. She's still got pain in her head and neck, and I'm sure that's normal, but you know how we moms are.

RACE DAY!!! Here are the creators posing before the official weigh in. Leave it to PC to make a face...always does. My guys were SO excited about this race! It made me so happy to see how thrilled they were and how giddy they were about the race. The car, as expected, weighed in at exactly 5 oz. We were in good shape. While we were waiting in line to be weighed, PC noticed that one of the back wheels wasn't rotating at all because it was pushed up against the car so tightly. This, we believe resulted from it being played with that morning and being carried and held by the wheels. PC did what he could to try to remedy the situation, but we turned the car in as it was and hoped for the best. The room was buzzing with boys, parents, hand tools, "car talk" and just general excitement. One would have thought, just walking into the room, that someone had walked in and fed everyone sugar!

The race was about to begin with the youngest of the troops. The boys, all the troops, gathered under the tables to get a perfect view of the track. It really was quite exciting. The track could be compared to a scaled down ski hill...steep and tall, with lots of straightaway at the bottom to slow down. Finally after watching the Tiger Cubs and the Wolf Cubs run their 18 heets (so that each car got at least one run in each track of the three laned track), it was time for the Bear Cub Den. We watched as the Scouts handed their cars to the "placers" who placed each car in its assigned lane. We waited as the Scout leaders took their time, building up anticipation before finally dropping the gate. We cheered as each leader emerged from the pack, and "OH'd" and "WHOA'd" if a car jumped its track into another car or jumped off the track entirely. We felt for the kids whose cars were clearly wrecked after the first run.

Finally it was SmallBoy's turn. Like proud parents we were so excited that we found the best available site from which to view the race and, in our excitement had forgotten about - or at least put from our minds - the fact that his wheels weren't spinning. The gate dropped. The cars FLEW down the hill. Two of the cars kept flying down the straightaway while SmallBoy's stopped dead. We had prepped him for the large possibility of NOT winning - and he was good to go on that. What we hadn't prepped him for was the small possibility of not winning, not because his car finished last, but because his car hadn't finished at all. You can imagine what happened. PC and I watched as the face turned from sheer child like glee to utter disappointment. His car, his pride, his project that he had spend so much bonding time with PC building wasn't even going to get to the finish line and, in fact, had stopped several yards short. He kept his "calm" while getting out of the circle, but once he was out, he let loose and was just bawling his eyes out. While he was trying to get to us on the other side of the room, we were trying to get to him as calmly as we could, knowing what we were facing.

Once he spotted us, he took off for us with no regard for anyone else in the room or anyone who might be in his way. He SLAMMED into a boy, at least two years older and considerably larger than he and crashed to the floor landing on his arm. He let out this scream that would lead everyone to believe that he had just cut off his arm. EVERY head in the room turned. I got him up and, I must confess, I didn't use the best tactics that I could, but was reacting like a parent whose child was freaking out. I told him that it didn't hurt as bad as he was making it out to be and that he needed to apologize to the boy. He got mad and screamed again. Finally, I managed to get him off to the side, near the restrooms and talked to him to get him to chill out and to try to understand why the car didn't finish. Of course, being an Aspie, he was too upset to hear any of what I said. He said that he was fine, and I let him go back to the group. He had missed his second race - probably for the best, but got out in time for the third, where the same thing happened again. He freaked. I finally got him to calm down.


We stuck around for the rest of the races, so that he could watch the others and that we weren't simply removing him from the situation. I knew that if he stayed for a while, he would ultimately calm down and I would finally be able to get through to him. Besides, the Scout masters were borrowing our microphone to do the announcing, so we had to stay til the end. Eventually he was fine, understood what we had talked about and had gone off to play with his friends. It's a good thing we stayed, though, as his car took 3rd place in the design category for his troop. He's showing off his medal and his car here in this picture. He was MUCH happier then, and, in his mind, that reward meant that his day had, indeed, been a success.

Last night, all was right in the world of SmallBoy, but Girl wasn't doing well at all. The decision was made that neither she nor I would be going anywhere today except to take her to the doctor, which, by the way, we are back from and she will live. She's got a stiff neck and the doc has changed her to small doses of Ibuprofen since we're more than 24hrs out of the BHT (blunt head trauma - or as Girl thought the nurse said, "blonde head trauma") . I've got her back home now on the couch watching movies. I think that the prognosis for both Girl and SmallBoy is good. So - did YOU do anything exciting this weekend????????