Is it just me, or has this been the longest week ever?
Never mind. I know the answer.
YES, YES IT HAS.
In a good way, though.
The past week started with Alexis and I driving to Tennessee so she could visit with her grandparents. I stayed there for a couple of days and then ran away to Milwaukee. Without Alexis. For multiple days.
Prepare yourself to judge internet. Ready? Soooo ... Alexis has never been away from both me and her dad for more than probably 12 hours. Does that make us terrible parents? Possibly, but we're terrible parents who really like hanging out with our kid. We have talked about taking a vacation without her, and every time we don't do it because when we start to think about places we could go, we can't imagine not sharing the experience with her.
We really do like spending time with our kid.
Which is why I was a wee bit sad panda about leaving her for three days, but I knew she would only sort of care because she was with her eight bajillion cousins having a fantastic time.
While I was gone, the crazy little monster with the curly hair had possession of my old iPhone. I had to get a new one last week because the location services on my first one had completely died. I kind of needed GPS to make the drive to Tennessee. There was also a problem with the battery lasting approximately long enough to sneeze, and you better believe I wanted a working phone with me while Alexis was cavorting with cousins. So I stripped my old one down to just a few apps, connected it to the wireless network at my in-laws house, and left it with Alexis.
One of the apps I left on it was Kik. It is nothing more than a text messaging app, but it's one that doesn't use data or call time. It works just fine with Wifi. I set it up so that Alexis could text me and I could text her back, spent three minutes showing her how to use it, and expected that she would never touch it.
But HOOBOY did she touch it. Girlfriend started out by texting me every ten seconds while I was still in Tennessee. In fact, we had a complete conversation via text while sitting on the couch together. We are just like an old married couple, right? That's what they do?
And then I left and the show REALLY began. I started getting texts at all hours of the day and night. Somewhere along the line the kid started to figure out punctuation and she learned how to make autocorrect her friend. It was actually pretty fun to watch. I got probably a dozen texts that simply said, "I love you momma!"
Don't tell Alexis, but if she were trying to convince me to let her have a real cell phone of her own, that's how she could get her way. Getting an "I love you momma" text at 3:00 am will make you all sorts of hearty melty, even if you would prefer that your kid figure out that sleep is fantastic.
My favorite text conversation was the one that took place after I sent her a photo of her stuffed bear that I had accidentally packed in my suitcase. I texted her "I stole your bear. NEENER NEENER."
She replied, "Hay! Grrrrrrrr!"
You guys. She writes like me! Bad spelling and all!
I replied, "Did you just growl at me?"
She said, "Yes. I am a stinker bum!"
AND THEN I DIED FROM THE CUTE. I managed to send her a reply before I did, fortunately, because she came back with, "I am!!!!!!!"
New rule. Nobody on the internet is allowed to use excessive exclamation points. Actually, that's an old rule. If you end multiple sentences in a facebook update, tweet, or blog post with ten exclamation points, I roll my eyes at you. I just do.
But Alexis? She is allowed to abuse punctuation. In fact, cough up some of your punctuation because she is better at using it than you are.
