Jacob the Builder

The past few months Jacob has been busy building. The first thing he made was a little miniature pirate ship out of little wood slivers. It had a mast and different levels to the deck with railing on the sides. The whole thing was only about 5 inches long. He then made a catamaran style sailboat with saran wrap for the sail. Then when Aaron framed in the door for the pantry he took the extra shimmy's (little pieces flat wood about 18 inches long) and cut them with his pocket knife (I didn't know he was doing this) and glued them together to make a speedboat. Then he added string and little paper inner tubes to the back. He also made a jet from carefully folding and taping scrap computer paper. Another project he did (with the help of his brothers) was building an elevated race track with 3 lanes for his matchbox cars to race down. The whole thing was about 6 feet long. He used a couple of big cardboard boxes and almost a whole roll of masking tape.


It thrills me to see him working on little projects like this. It makes me wonder if he'll be an engineer or an architect one day. When he got his block of wood for his first pinewood derby car back in January he was excited beyond belief. The race was a month and a half away but he started on his car the next day. Aaron told him to draw the outline on the side of the block of wood. He drew, erased and drew until he got it just right. Then Aaron cut it out with a jigsaw. As you can imagine the cuts were pretty rough but over the next few days Jacob sanded those edges down to perfection. He and Aaron went to the store where he chose the colors he wanted. He had a great idea for a style but the stripes were too tricky do do on his own so Aaron placed the tape and helped him fix the over sprayed parts that got too much paint. In the end he was very happy with his car.


On the day of the race he was very excited and nervous. I told him that since this was his first year making/racing a pinewood derby car that he might not win. "I know mom," he said. "Rookies hardly ever win."

Once the race started I think his brothers were as excited as he was. About half way through the race Joseph came up to me (Jacob was doing really well at this point) and he said in a very sincere voice, "Mom, I'm so nervous, I just want Jacob to win."
To make a long story short I'll sum up the race results with what Jacob told me later that night when we got home. "Well Mom, I guess rookies really can win!"

How a little boy who designed his car entirely himself, with absolutely no influence or intervention from his Dad (I love Aaron for this) built a pinewood derby car that won the whole competition is beyond me. He really is an amazing little builder.

I just have to add here that his race composure cracked me up. Often times I'd be taking a picture of his face while his car was racing down the track so I never knew if his car won or lost because I was zoomed in on him. I thought that he lost the first couple races because I interpreted his "poker face" as him handling a defeat. Later I learned that he had won those races and was working very hard to suppress his excitement because, as he said, "I didn't want to be annoying." He's such a funny boy.