At 14 months old, Jackson Arrington has always been a grandma’s boy.
And with his grandma, Vicky Arrington, waiting at the finish line of the KELA/KMNT Diaper Derby at the Southwest Washington Fair on Thursday, he wasted no time getting back in her arms.
In both his qualifying heat and the grand finale, Jackson crawled across the track in under 10 seconds, leaving no doubt in either race as to who the fastest baby was.
“He wanted Grammy,” Tailor Arrington, Jackson’s mother, said with a laugh after the race. “He wants Grammy. That’s his person.”
While the rules were being read aloud just before the competition, it was announced that food and drink could not be used to encourage the babies to reach the finish line.
While that thwarted the mother’s initial plan, she quickly realized a backup strategy would likely work out better anyway.
“I was like, ‘Oh no, what are we gonna do?’” Tailor said. “But then I was like, ‘We have grandma, it’ll be fine … Once he gets an idea in his mind, he just goes.”
She added that she was shocked to see him move so quickly, saying she expected him to bear crawl, his normal method of transportation around the house and one he reverted back to following the competition.
The decision to register Jackson for the race happened last-minute, as they weren’t sure if he would be walking by this point or not.
“When we signed him up, they were like, ‘If he stands up and walks, he’s disqualified,’” Tailor recalled with another laugh. “Well if he stands up and walks that’s gonna be a miracle, so I think I’ll be more excited if he starts walking.”
Tailor Arrington, a “Lewis County lifer,” has always known about the baby races, and at first, she was nervous because she didn’t know what Jackson would do.
But those nerves quickly faded when Jackson won his qualifying heat to make the finals, and then proceeded to win the grand prize that included a table and chairs, a fishing pole and plenty of diapers.
“It was great. It was so much fun,” Tailor said. “I’m super excited.”
The Southwest Washington Fair continues through Sunday. Learn more here: https://southwestwashingtonfair.org/
