Get your motor running...

This year, Marley decided to participate in our town's Girl Scout Powder Puff Derby.  Starting with a very basic kit, participants are encouraged to begin by, perhaps, sanding and shaping a triangular wedge.  Then they can paint and embellish for style, they can polish axles and add weight for speed, and eventually all these cars race and vie for prizes.  All the rules and regulations overwhelmed me, which, first of all, doesn't say much about my levels of self-confidence and tenacity at this point in my life.  Or actually, that says it all.

Anyhow, I thought it would be best if Todd and Marley worked on a Powder Puff Derby car together, partly because it seemed like it would be a precious father-daughter memory, and mostly because Todd is the woodworker around our home.  In fact, he has made a lot of our furniture, so my lack of involvement was not a lazy copout.  Marley began work on a design, hoping to win the award for Most Colorful.  Because our family is not known for quickness, I felt she was right to focus on something other than actually winning a race.

Except.  Todd went overboard in his preliminary construction of Marley's race car.  And most everything we read about the derby emphasized that the girls should be the ones doing the sanding, embellishing, and polishing.  Adult helpers needed to assist for guidance and for safety, of course, but that's it.  So when Todd proudly showed me his car, I looked at him with disbelief and disappointment. Clearly, power tools had been involved.  Clearly, Marley had done none of this.  He had even used a different block of wood. 

So, the whole thing needed a do over.  It's fortunate that he hadn't used the kit's slight wedge of pine, and that he had extra embellishments.  So he started over, and I imagine sometime next December we'll transform Todd's first draft into a jolly little sleigh.  

Aside from the priming, Marley painting every brushstroke of color onto her car by herself, and she remained faithful to her original design, which is Quintessential Marley.  Todd helped by lining the car with painter's tape and by corralling Marley to the table each time her last coat was dry enough to warrant another layer.  Rudy assisted by scurrying industriously from the playroom to the kitchen table, muttering to herself during the repeated trips back and forth, and setting out colored nesting cups.  It took Todd and me a while to realize that she was pretending to make her own race car, dipping a dry paint brush in the cups and then swatting it over the little plastic four-wheeler in her hand.  It was adorable.

Over the course of a snow day, Marley finished her colorful car, and Todd affixed the wheels so she could test it on our sloping kitchen floor.  Later that night, Marley and Todd ventured through the drifts of ridiculous March snow to drop off their car for its weigh-in and inspection before the next day's race.

Todd and I tried to convince Marley that the car would be a stronger contender if she added a plastic bubble to indicate a cab, preferably with some racers inside.  Todd had purchased a stick-on hook solely for its plastic packaging, and Lord knows we've got enough little guys around the house.  The Squinkies I picked out of a container in the playroom, a pink owl and a purple cat, were just two of dozens of absurd possibilities. 

But Marley chose to submit her car without racers or even a cab.  Perhaps she thought those additions were too childish, and perhaps she was thinking about aerodynamics and secretly hoping to win it all.  In the end, she did not win any prizes, but now she has a colorful race car on display in her bedroom, and because I could not let go of my Squinkie driver fantasy, I placed the car on the girls' bookcase with a wild purple cat at the helm and a pink owl, presumably suggesting cautious driving instructions, in the backseat.