A little healthy competition never hurt anyone, right? Well…unless you risk your life by stepping on a lego while you’re having a contest with your 6 year-old to see who can build ‘the coolest, most epic ship’ in 10 minutes.

Yeah. That hurts. Ever stepped on a tack? It pretty much feels like that. But worse. Because every little killer bump on that piece digs into your tender foot. At least with a tack, it’s just one puncture.

Anyway.

Once I get over the fact that my foot is now (I mean again…I really should be used to this by now) wounded, I sit down to take part in this friendly competition.

Or so I think.

This is Levi we’re talking about.

This is the firecracker-of-a-kid who says things like: “When I get tickled is the only time I get a six pack. So if I go into the army I’ll have to be tickled the WHOLE time I’m there so I can be strong and have a six pack.”

This is the kid who, upon seeing someone smoking a cigarette, will point and loudly exclaim, “Doesn’t he know that’s gonna make him DIE?!”

And who goes around singing songs all day about how much he loves his toots while doing a little dance (I know. Trust me. I know…).

And who jumps into the middle of the clean clothes pile and instead of gathering clean clothes and going to his room to change, will start whisking everything off while yelling out to everyone, “If you don’t want to see my undies, look away right now!”

Or who has the inhuman ability to produce this ear-piercing scream at the drop of a hat — and to pinch harder than should be possible for the hand of a little kid…if someone tries to take control of the make-believe game he is playing, he screams or pinches. If someone hurts him, he screams AND pinches. For no reason at all sometimes, he screams. And/Or pinches. He calls it his ‘defense’ and says he needs it to protect himself because everyone else is bigger than him.

And the amazingly hilarious bursts of laughter that come from this squirt that resemble a pack of chipmunks is…well…amazingly hilarious. And the best of those laughs comes when he is either A) Doing something mischievous and gets caught, or B) Is able to run away faster than you can spank him back after he lands a hard one on you.

This is also the kid who told me pretty much every day that I was pregnant with his baby sister last year that there’s no way I could ‘just be pregnant with one baby,’ because it looked like I was growing another one in my big bum.

Yep.

This cutie came to earth with an Exclamation Point attached to him. Pretty much everything he says or does has one that just comes along with it, with who he is. NEVER A DULL MOMENT, let me tell you.

Anyway.

I should have known what I was getting myself into when I agreed to this build-the-best-ship competition with his Legos. I should have gotten a pep talk from Mike first, to boost my self-esteem. Levi IS really good at building legos, after all…and I’m out of practice.

Hence, this is what ensued…for the whole…ten…minutes:

“I am SO much better at this than you!”

~ chipmunk laughter ~

“MAMA. Are you EVEN trying??”

~ chipmunk laughter ~

“Oh I am SO gonna win this contest!”

~ chipmunk laughter ~

“If I am your kid and you are my mom, then where did I get my epic-ly awesome lego building skills?? ‘Cause I sure didn’t get them from you!”

~ chipmunk laughter ~

“I thought this was gonna be a contest, mama…”

~ chipmunk laughter ~

~ chipmunk laughter ~

~ chipmunk laughter ~

And when we finally finished, I thought DANG. I actually did a pretty good job! I seriously fully expected Levi to have something nice to say. Maybe Congratulations! Or Good job! Or Dude, maybe you ARE kind of cool, or That turned out to be a close contest!

Instead, I get this (accompanied by chipmunk laughter):

“Ohhhh man, mama — you are SO horrible at this!!”

~ more chipmunk laughter ~

I get over myself, swallow my pride, remind myself that he has no filter yet, and half-sarcastically say, “Thank you,” with a big smile.

What does he say? (Also with a big smile and a look of great satisfaction.)

“You’re welcome!”

…I think I preferred stepping on the lego. It hurt less than my ego.