Samuel

The Pine Wood Derby is tomorrow night for Samuel's pack. 2 years ago, Buddy had just come back from being with his dad who'd been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Buddy spent hours a night for several weeks working on that car, making it just right. I think it was therapeutic in 2 ways- keeping his mind off his dad and working to make a memory with his own son. He got 3rd in the city-wide race and 1st in his pack.

This year has been a little different. I got the design idea in October, but God has blessed Buddy with so much work he hasn't been able to devote as much time. In fact, it's only been 6 days since he started. Samuel is quite confident, though and prayed last night that God would give us wisdom on the car and thanked Him for helping him win. He also prayed that God would help everyone else be happy losers. Gotta love that boy's confidence! Although there's still work to do, it's looking good and God has helped us. I'll let you know Saturday how it went. If he does well Saturday afternoon in the city competition, there's a final that night. We did have plans for a basketball game, but may have to change them.

Here's another funny thing about Samuel. After the tea party, he was quite intrigued by the water pot that heats water really fast. He also found the "rules" really interesting. So, he set about making tea for us all the next day and again Monday morning. He had 3 tea pots out with the 3 kinds of tea, cups for all, and their saucers. The mechanics of it all was pretty fun for him. He took apart a pen yesterday and studied how it worked and explained it all to me in DETAIL, while he was supposed to being doing his work. It's amazing to watch his mind going, trying to figure everything out. He can come up with some really good explainations that are really close.

2 weeks ago, he came in while I was getting Caleb up and showed me he told he'd pulled another tooth. I didn't know any were loose, but he knew how to take care of it, had his salt water solution to swish. Of course, he wanted to know if I was going to be tooth fairy and give him his dollar that night.

A few days ago, he decided it was time to bake something and looked all over for something to make. He was ready to climb on top of the stove to pull down recipe books. It's the KitchenAid that is calling his name. How fast can it go? What happens if I raise the lever? Will it work if the bowl is not raised? Today he wanted to help me chop some garlic. The joys of using machines and knives!