The day I made a little boy cry

The title of this post really says it all, folks.

Seriously.

Today, my department and other departments at work devoted to different areas of student ministry (meaning marketing, camps, training, girls’ ministry, etc.) all met a local bowling alley for Student Ministry Fun Day. It’s the second year we’ve done this particular activity. You are grouped into teams and spread out among many lanes. The goal is to knock down as many pins as possible, then get as many tickets as possible with the 10 tokens you are given to use in the arcade. At the end of the event, points are totaled and the winning team gets a prize.

A pretty good team-building activity in my mind. Especially the whole you-get-the-rest-of-the-day-off part.

Today, my team was made up of my boss, a guy who is married to a girl in my department and apparently works for student events, me, and a young woman who works in student events. She had her son with her who was maybe 2. Granted, I’d never met her before, much less the kid. But he was cute. And really clingy. So clingy that she had to hold him the first few times she bowled. Eventually he started to warm up to us. I saw him playing with his matchbox cars and went over to talk to him about them. Really, I just wanted to play cars. His response? To cry!

I felt terrible. And I hadn’t done a thing!

Later, he seemed to make up with me, even shyly smiling at me and making sure I was watching him as he played with his mom. I thought we’d finally made friends. Until I tried to sit down next to him and play. His response? MORE CRYING!

Basically, I made the kid cry twice without doing anything but trying to play with him.

Apparently, to small children, I am very scary. Very scary!

I hope my nephew likes me more than this kid did. I hope my own kids (should I ever have them) like me better than this kid did.

I hope you guys like me more than this kid did.

Now, I’m going to use my free afternoon for a nap. Then I’m packing for my quick trip to Missouri.

And guys? TGIF!