Hahaha! We hear you, and thanks for the suggestion!
Although, you can always just tap the keyboard button after you choose the emoji you like to get back to your keyboard instantly. It's in the far left of the emotes bar, next to the 🏠 icon (it looks like a ⌨)
Totally get it - as a small-hand-haver myself, it gets pretty inconvenient especially when typing 😅
But the beauty of an Android phone is in its customizability ♥ Gboard is a good alternative for me, its keys are big enough for me to feel comfortable (plus the Back-to-Keyboard button is on the bottom part of the keyboard - might be perfect for you!)
An oldie-but-goodie reco is SwiftKey - they're the guys who made swipe texting possible - and it's been a great way to text when I'm on the move, since I can just swipe with one thumb and type most sentences that way.
Let me know if any of these suggestions help you out! ♥
