Clean, Dirty

It's funny how children can differ so much, even within a family. Charlie seems to have a streak of OCD. I probably shouldn't say this in jest since OCD is a serious problem for some people. He's the only child I know of who hates being dirty. He loves washing his hands. It's not that he does it all the time but at times when one should wash hands, like after using the bathroom, he enjoys the whole process: turn on the water, put soap on his hands, rinse. He just likes to be clean. This morning, we had leftover waffles from yesterday. As usual, he asked for a rag (moist washcloth) so he could wipe his hands and face in case get got syrup on himself.

Ellie, on the other hand, doesn't seem to mind being dirty. She freaks out when I try to wipe her face and hands clean after meals. It's not that she doesn't like to be clean because she enjoys washing hands and taking baths. I think she just doesn't care as much about being clean all the time as Charlie does.
Here's a picture of Charlie and Ellie after eating pudding. Notice how Charlie's face is practically spotless (and just to be clear, I did not wipe his face or hands before taking this picture!) and how Ellie has pudding all over her face. Even after I thought I'd cleaned Ellie up, Dan discovered she still had pudding in the creases of one of her eyelids.

LOL

I wish I was better about recording the cute and funny things my kids do. Dan told me this story when we were going to bed last night.

We were at the farmer's market yesterday. I must have been at a different stand at the time while Dan kept an eye on the kids. A lady was trying to get people to buy her tomatoes and was calling out her prices. When he heard her, Charlie ran up towards her stand and shouted, "Team Geotrax, all aboard!" If you have a little boy who loves trains, you'd know that that's from the theme song of a video about trains. I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I heard about the incident. I love how my kids make me laugh all the time.

Waipo and Waigong

In Chinese, Waipo is what you would call your maternal grandmother and Waigong is what you would call your maternal grandfather. My parents were here for a visit this past week. Charlie and Ellie loved having them here. Charlie kept saying "Waipo and Waigong" constantly. I think this is the first time they were both able to take a long trip somewhere together for fun.

There wasn't much happening this time of year in Cheyenne but it was nice to just relax. We enjoyed going to the park, the library (which is amazing by the way), and to Ft. Collins. It was great to have my parents here because they did the cooking half the time! Ellie, who loves going outside and walking down our street, was really glad to have someone willing to walk with her. Charlie said it was nice to have Waipo and Waigong come and visit us. I'm really glad they came too!

Yea for Dan!!

Dan studied computer science in college. He realized that his school was not strong in the area on which he wanted to focus - computer networking. So, after getting his degree he took classes specializing in Cisco networking and got two professional certificates which instantly made him a lot more marketable. Those tests were beasts - for the first certificate he only had to take one test but for the second certificate he had to take FOUR tests. But his hard work paid off and he was able to land a good paying job mainly because of this second higher level certification (and because he's a great problem solver!).

Well, there's a catch with these professional certifications: you have to renew it every few years, which means taking more tests. You only have to take one test to renew before the expiration date but if you don't do it before the expiration date, you have to retake ALL four tests. Talk about torture! Anyway, he's worked really hard to study for the exam between working full-time, taking care of his family, and dealing with health issues. But, he never gave up and just kept trying when most people would have thrown in the towel.

Once again, he has overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He passed his test today. I'm so proud of him!!