The Thrill of Victory - FINALLY!!!!

So, early summer has become a time of dread for our family.  And NO, not because it's the beginning of summer vacation and having non-quality 24/7 kid time (though that would be a close second, as you can understand after reading last week's blog post). 

NOPE, what our family dreads most is the annual early summer Cub Scout competitive event.  You know, the Pinewood Derby, Boat Regatta, etc.  Those words strike fear and dread in my heart.


2011
Connor is eight years old and had been in Scouts for about 5 months, when along came the Sailing Regatta, our Scout Pack's 2011 event.  To power your Regatta boats, you have to huff and puff and blow your sailboat down a little canal.  Connor & Mark (neither of whom at this point are very good engineers) crafted a little clunky (but cute) green sailboat with a pine tree on its sail that Connor named "Forest."  It's adorable, right?  But, very sadly, Connor & Forest lost badly in every race they were in.  Now keep in mind, Connor has autism, and his number one meltdown trigger (always has been, probably always will be) is frustration.   And it's MIGHTY frustrating to huff and puff and watch your little cute boat move… a couple inches.  Cue up crying meltdown for poor little Connor.

Here's a photo of Connor losing to his friend Rowan, whose boat eventually won the whole competition.  (Notice cute little attentive 6-year old Noah in the background, behind Connor)

HOWEVER, Rowan, being a great friend to Connor and seeing how upset Connor was, loaned Connor HIS winning boat to race.   Wowie!  That's awesome!!! 

And then, uuuuummmmm, with Connor at the helm, this boat loses, too.

UGH.  Thought it couldn't get worse, but it kinda really horribly did.


2012
A year later, it's now time for our Scout Pack's Pinewood Derby.  Connor, with the rotten Regatta memories evidently resurfacing, flatly refused to build a car.  Mark and I took the easy way out, breathed a sigh of relief, and said, "Fine."  Now, in our defense, I would usually say to my child, "No no, we fell down, but we must get back up and keep trying" or some rah-rah speech like that.  HOWEVER, when you have a kid with autism, you learn to pick your battles.  And believe you me, this was NOT one of them for us.

HOWEVER, on the day of the Pinewood Derby Connor decided that he DID want to go.  UGH!!!  But okay, fine, we thought maybe it'd be good for him to go, be a good sport, support his friends.  When we arrived at the Pinewood Derby, some friends of ours (with two older boys, who'd been through MANY of these events) offered Connor one of their old cars to race, which they had conveniently brought with them.  Surprisingly (and horribly), Connor agreed.

The car didn't even make it halfway down the SUPER STEEP track.  A square covered in chewed chewing gum would have moved faster. 

AND, to finish it (and Connor) off, the wheels then all fell off.  No, I am not kidding.  It. Was. That. Bad.

Have you ever seen a sadder photo than this one?  Connor (left), trudging away, with another frustration meltdown soon to come.

And once again, here's eager little Noah (and Shelby at the left), watching the Pinewood Derby, dreaming of the day that HE can be a Cub Scout:

MARCH 2013
The announcement of the 2013 Cub Scout Space Derby is announced.  UUUUGGGGGHHHHHH.  You're with us now, right, on the UGH part?  You understand our dread now, right? 

This is now Noah's first year in Scouts, so he is OVER THE MOON excited. And Connor decided that he would build a rocket, too.  Noooooooooooo!   At this point, I ACTIVELY tried to plan a surgery.   Or root canal.  Or a broken leg.  ANYTHING to get us out of having to go to this event.  BUT, both boys insisted they wanted to go and do it. 

*deep sigh*  Fine.


JUNE 2013
So, we went to work building …. airplanes.  Connor and Noah both wanted to build airplanes.  I kept reminding them it was a SPACE derby racing SPACESHIPS.  They insisted on airplanes.

*more deep sighs*  FINE!  Build airplanes!!!

Here's Connor's stealth plane, named "Nightshade."  Connor's entry won him "Coolest Name." 

And Noah showing off his WW2-looking plane, the "Noah 'Nado."  Noah's entry won him "Most Ferocious!"  Although Connor commented that Noah should have won "Most Prehistoric."  Ha ha, very funny.  I had previously warned Noah his entry was rather big and not very aerodynamic but he said he didn't care about winning, he just wanted it to "look awesome."  Love that kid.  :)

Okay, I'll admit, the planes are pretty cool-looking, even if they're not rockets.  Mark helped them shave the wood down to the shapes they picked, then they painted their base colors, and I helped them with the finishing touches. 

After we arrived at the Space Derby and started to wind the rockets airplanes, ummmmm, things began breaking off.  In alarming frequency.  SO MUCH SO, that both Noah and Connor weren't able to compete in their races while Mark was frantically trying to repair their planes.  And in a horrid turn of events, those delays pitted them….against EACH OTHER, in the first heat.  Ritchie vs. Ritchie. 

You can say it with me now - "UUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

I'll admit, I silently, feverishly prayed for Noah to lose.  And by this time, Noah's plane had lost all but two of its back wings, so I was even more hopeful that my little darling eager light-of-my-life adorable freckled son Noah would PLEASE STINKIN' LOSE!!!! 

The epic showdown of brother vs. brother began.

The Noah 'Nado took off …… well, it took off like a ROCKET.  And left Connor's Nightshade literally sitting still, spinning dust.

No, I am not kidding.  IT.  WAS. THAT. BAD.  You don't believe me?  Here, watch it on video:

I think my look of horror matched the Scout Leader's look of horror (she has been with Connor through all of these events and I think was dreading it almost as much as we were).  Even Noah in the video looks a bit shell shocked.

Needless to say, Noah recovered quickly and ran down to retrieve his winning plane.  HIS STINKIN' WINNING HUGE FAT PRE-HISTORIC NON-STEALTHY PLANE THAT WASN'T EVEN A ROCKET!!!!  

It was at this point that I realized I didn't hear screaming and crying.  ?????? Connor was actually holding it together.  I could tell he was upset, but he was HOLDING HIMSELF TOGETHER.  Mark and I both blinked, and then quickly went to work fixing his plane.  Because they told him he could race it again.  I was silently shrieking, "NO NO NO!  He does NOT need to race again!!!""  BUT, he wanted to.  So we grimly fixed the Nightshade up.

And guess what?  Connor and Nightshade WON their second race.  Unfortunately, it was against Connor's good friend, Luke.  But YES, you read that right.  CONNOR'S PLANE WON!!!!!!  (and yes, that's Shelby's head inside the race area wandering around - *sigh*)

REPEAT THAT:  CONNOR WON A CUB SCOUT RACE!!!!  Yes, it was only one heat.  And it was against one of the more losing rockets (sorry again, Lukester) of the competition.  But Connor was thrilled and didn't even want to race it again.  He said he was happy just knowing that his plane REALLY did work and COULD go fast.  And he spent the rest of the event holding Nightshade and wandering around being happy and sometimes even congratulating the other boys.  ???? !!!!!

WOW.  My little fellow is growing up.  And all of our efforts of helping him manage his autism are starting to show.  JUST WOW.

(back from my break 10 minutes later, the Mommy tears were flowing)

And in other great news, Noah went on to win again!  And again!  And with Connor's amazing good mood and attitude about all of it, it felt SOOO great to be able to cheer for Noah now!

Alas, even the ferocious Noah 'Nado was no match for Noah's good buddy, Nathan, and Nathan's literally fast-as-a-rocket rocket, which went on to win the entire competition.  Yay Nathan!   Noah placed a respectable 5th or 6th place.  WOO HOO!  And of course, Noah was a great loser - he was just thrilled to FINALLY be able to participate.

But WAIT, there's more!  The Scout Leaders, in addition to the top prizes, awarded a couple of other prizes.   And Connor won the Sportmanship medal!  Woohoo!  His fantastic Scout leaders, knowing his difficult history, KNEW first-hand just as much as we did, how much progress in that area Connor had made from previous years and knew that him being able to lose AGAIN, and this time to his punky little newbie brother of all people!  and handle it gracefully, was nothing short of astounding.  Connor was absolutely beaming about this award.  Mark and I may have been beaming a little more, though.  :)

Mark and I both agreed that THIS DAY, a day we'd been dreading seriously literally for MONTHS, had just turned into one of our all-time favorite and most proud days of Connor.  To see Connor overcome something that had plagued and tortured him for years - his frustration, NOT at not winning, but frustration at his entries not even WORKING - and even congratulate other boys was SUCH a dramatic behavioral turnaround!!   I mean, his experiences would frustrate even the most patient person, right?, but to a kid with autism, well, what happened today is nothing short of miraculous and amazing. 

And, for the first time, we were able to go out and celebrate our family's Scouting victories today!  We celebrated with another Cub Scout family, and told Connor and Noah that they'd have to "share" Luke.  So, here is Luke being "shared" and looking a little alarmed at the prospect!  This photo completely cracks me up.

At home later, we fixed up the Noah 'Nado and the Nightshade and hung them in the boy's rooms.  (I have no idea what happened to the Forest or the sad little wheel-less Pinewood derby car from last year).  Noah was delighted to lay on his bed admiring his spacecraft airplane.  And yet another win today - this is one of my most favorite Noah photos ever - look at that face!!!! 

 

And here's goofball (and still ecstatically happy) Connor, feigning fear from his stealth plane sneaking over his head in his room.

 

 Welp, can't wait to see what we'll be doing for Cub Scouts in 2014!  And yes, I actually mean that!