We entered Ben in a diaper derby back in June. That one, well, it didn’t go super well. Ben was great. He was cute, he was happy, he looked good. But he wasn’t crawling yet. It wasn’t surprising then that he didn’t win. We were still very proud of him. This past weekend, Meo heard that there was going to be a diaper derby at the Corn boil in the next town over. We decided to head on over and check it out!
Neither Pat nor I had ever been to this Corn boil before. It was cute. The usual small town stuff we are used to seeing around here. They did have a nice children’s area with little activities for the kids. It appeared as though there were several contests for children during the day. The Diaper Derby, honestly, was not the best though. It appeared to be thrown together at the last second, and there was no real game plan in place. But, hey, whatever, right? It’s all for fun. Basically they just lined a couple of kids up and said go. Pat and I were more prepared this time though. We had a plan. We had ‘lures’ to try to get Ben to want to crawl to us. Omi was able to make it to see the race, so we had someone at the start gate and finish line, leaving me free to take pictures. (This was obviously the most important part of the whole event.) We also had the most important part- Ben was able to crawl! We were raring to go.
Except for one thing- Ben was not raring to go. In fact, Ben was completely against the race. He cried. That’s it. No crawling, no push up, just tears. Poor boy. There were a few possible reasons for this. 1. This race was in a gym, and the place was a little loud. Everything echoed. 2. He is older and more aware of strangers now. This can sometimes make him uncomfortable and want the comfort of being held. 3. The race was at 2pm. No matter how I play with nap times, this is always a nap time. Either the very start of one or end of a super early one. Usually it is right in the middle. But trying to race at a time when you are normally napping is hard. And finally, 4. Ben’s a baby. That really sums up a lot of his behaviors. 😉
Once we picked Ben back up he was fine. After the attempt at racing we headed home and Ben got his much needed nap. We did learn something from this. Pat and I were curious to see how Ben would do with a really late nap, or possibly no nap at all. We don’t plan on skipping naps normally. But we are having people in town for Ben’s birthday, and it would be good to know how Ben could do with changes to his afternoon nap. Now we know it is possible to miss part of that nap, but Ben will need a lot of cuddling and attention to get through. He probably can’t go without a nap at all in the afternoon though. This is good to know and helps with our planning. While Ben didn’t win this derby either, we did gain some good data from it.
We also learned that Ben hates diaper derbies. Poor little guy.
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| Getting pumped up for the race. |
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| This was a bad idea! |
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| Why is this happening? |
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| A little better. My brave boy. |
I’d like to say a special thank you to Omi, who dropped everything and drove a good bit to come meet us at the race. The race itself didn’t go so well, but it meant to much to me that Omi was there to support Ben. Thank you, Omi!
–Kim