I was out of town, because of course I was. Have I been home the past month? I don't seem to remember ... Anyway, I was out of town when I noticed a new text from Alexis.
Wait. Let's back up a second and review, just in case any of you crazy kids missed the first time I mentioned that Alexis has gained the Power of Texting. I gave her my old phone and installed Kik on it, which uses Wifi and lets her send me and only me texts. I'm not crazy enough to let a 6-year old have a data plan. She'd be texting every Justin Bieber in the phone book until she found one who offered to meet her on a street corner with a cookie.
So ... I was out of town when I started getting texts from the short person. At some point I must not have been answering her fast enough because she started doing what she ALWAYS does if I don't jump the very second she says jump.
She texted, "Mommy mommy."
Which, you know what? It's just as annoying when your kid keeps chanting "Mommy" in a text as it is when they do it right in front of your face. I recently stumbled onto a way of addressing the in-person thing that seems to be working. Sort of. It's better than screaming, "SHUT YOUR FACE. I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME, YOU ANNOYING LITTLE CREATURE." Not that I want to scream that when she starts going, "Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy" but, YES. I DO. I WANT TO SCREAM THAT.
I don't, though. Instead, I reply with, "Alexis Alexis." Annoy the annoyer is my motto.
I figured I would annoy the annoyer via text.
Obviously, it took no time at all for an Annoying Contest to break out. I don't even know who was doing the best job of annoying the annoyer. I just know that I had the power of copy and paste on my side, so it only took me a second or two to send her a message with her name typed over and over and over.
She, on the other hand, does not know how to copy and paste yet. She is, after all, only six years old. I still find it somewhat amazing that she often uses better spelling and grammar than most Facebook users.
She must have counted the number of times I included her name in that last reply because she up and deliberately made sure she outdid me. For a moment, please pause and imagine her pecking out her reply. And the correct descriptor is "pecking" because girlfriend takes FOREVER to find letters on the keyboard. I disabled auto-complete because it was hurting her brain, so she truly did spend a long time preparing her response.
She's right. She wins.
So if you heard me snort-laughing as I walked around in New York, there you go. That was why.
Weeeeee!