Last year, Brayden and James spent loads of time designing Brayden’s AWANA grand prix car. James looked up tricks on what to do with the wheels . . . he used weights in the car. He looked lots of stuff up online. For the amount of time they spent trying to get it in good racing shape, it didn’t really pan out to be a winning car. I know the point isn’t all about winning, but it’s always fun to be a little bit successful, especially when spending some time on something.

This year, I made an announcement that we weren’t going to spend that much time on the cars. It was silly to put so much effort into something without getting results that were appropriate for the effort. I wanted the boys to have fun picking out their car’s “theme” and to help by painting it.  We didn’t do anything fancy with the design–I told James just to cut them into simple wedges. We printed of a couple of things from the internet and glued them to the top. They were light, but I didn’t think it mattered. The wheels didn’t spin very well, but I didn’t think that mattered. The boys liked them, and that’s what was important.

And that was the end of my excitement, and the beginning of my bleeding momma’s heart.

The race was this past Saturday. There were 57 cars racing, and they used a fabulous point system that I thought was brilliant and fair. If you won your heat, you got 0 points. second place was 1 points, third was 2 points and fourth was 3 points. Once you got six points, you were eliminated.

By the luck of the draw (Or the unluck), Brayden and Carter’s cars were randomly placed together in their first heat.  It’s always such a hopeful thing–the moment when the cars will go down the track for the first time and you have no idea what they will do.

Well, you want to know what they did?  Both of them?  They putt putted down the track at the speed of molasses, and Brayden’s barely made it to the finish line. They were almost embarrassingly slow. Both of theirs.

You can see it, can’t you? The blood pouring out of my broken heart. My own disappointment was probably a million times bigger than my children’s. My momma heart was breaking for my children.

While James and I consoled Carter, whose gigantic eyes were welling up with tears, Brayden tried to hide his own disappointment as well. His car already had three points. Carter barely beat Brayden, so he had two points.

Brayden’s car obviously lost his second heat as well, eliminating him from the race after two heats. And Carter had to suffer through three losses in a row before his car was eliminated. Thankfully he didn’t cry the second and third time.

Lesson learned: Next year, you better bet we will be spending more time on our cars and weighing them, and lubing up those wheels. Both of theirs were less than half of what they were allowed to be.  All my fault? Yes. Is winning super important? No. But a little success never hurt anyone 🙂  Here’s to hoping next year they come in at least second in a heat or two!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a heart to stitch up.