I read this quote recently that I really liked:

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I can achieve it!

Which means that if you can imagine something, and you believe in your heart that you can do it, then you CAN do it!

Here are some of the things you can do now:
Count things with you finger up to ten.
Recognize all the planets, the sun and moon
You know about 4 or five colors, blue, black, green, yellow
You know at least 100 – 200 words just by hearing.
You know the parts of the body
You can walk and a cute little toddler running
You can pick up water or things with a shovel
You like to listen to songs and music on the computer
You can point at things you want
You can shake your head for no and yell out “yeah” if asked a question.
You say mama when you want your mom.
You know how to be silly, play, laugh and have fun
You can throw a ball or balloon in the air, you can catch a balloon with your arms
You can pick up things and carry them around the house

It’s not how you look on the outside, what counts is what’s inside.

What makes you a man is how you face challenges in your life.

In the future, maybe it’ll be different, but now most people have to work to make money, money to buy the everyday goods and services. I don’t like to think that money makes the world go round, but it’s part of everyday life.

So how do you get money? In my life, I’ve had to work for it mostly. Of course you may get some gifts of money or even get lucky and find a 20 dollar bill on the street, but usually you have to work to get most of the you’ll require for your everyday needs.

Having money is almost like having more choices. If you have a lot of money, you have more choices for your house, travel, luxuries, and even such critical things like medical care and food to eat.

So, the bottom line is you will probably need to get money, and the more the better. Of course there are things money can not buy like true love and happiness, but it can create possibilities and offer choices.

So how to get that money? I’ve never been a fan of working for others, I don’t like people telling me what to do, unless I can see a lot of usefulness or benefit, like a good boss who is helping me learn a valuable skill.

It’s a fact that most people who are millionaires in the US are business owners. It’s uncommon to get rich working for others. That’s because as an employee, according to accounting, you are an expense. They may call you an asset, but the bottom line is every employee is an expense and it’s inherent that businesses will try to reduce expenses whenever they can. Though it has risks, business ownership is the key to substantial riches.

But let’s not linger on getting rich, let’s talk about working. As a business owner or employee you will probably be working. A full time job typically requires 8 hour days, 5 days a week. A business owner may work even more.

That time is your life. So how do you not waste that time? How can you work, make money, and enjoy what you do?

I’ve had more than a few jobs that are boring or had to work for bosses I didn’t like. I’ve tried to avoid that ever since!

Think about what you like to do and what are you good at. Also consider what people need and want now and in the future. Is there a point where your interests and the needs and wants of people intersect?

I discovered I liked making websites and there are all kinds of needs on the Internet, so it made sense for me to learn how to build websites and applications. I wasn’t good at it at first, but I’ve improved a lot with practice. But honestly, I wouldn’t have practiced so much if I didn’t really enjoy it. The joy of something makes you want to get better at it and as you get better and start to become an expert you find ways to turn that into value for people and earn money. It’s a great feeling to provide a valuable service to people and enjoy doing it and make $$$ by it!

I sincerely encourage you to find what you like to do and really learn and practice it.

I’d like to tell you about your Great Grandfather Thomas Combs. He was the youngest of 10 children. He grew up during the Great Depression for some time in Chicago, some time in NE Indiana. He told me how his family struggled, but he family members took care of each other. He lost a sister and his mother to Tuberculosis.

He served in the US Navy during World War 2. He helped deliver medical supplies to the sick and wounded.

After the war he met your Great Grandmother Bonnie, they married, and their first child was your Grandmother Susan. They went on to have four more children.

Over the next several decades, your Great Grandfather got into education. He was a teacher and he also went to the university part time, getting a bachelors, masters, and finally a PHD! All this while trying to raise 5 children, and Great Grandmother Combs worked and went to the University too, and got a masters degree.

What I really admire about him is his strength of character. He was physically strong, he played some football in high school and college, but also a strong sharp mind. He loved to read books just like you and enjoyed music. He worked very hard and dilligently. He provided for his wife and all his children and was always faithful and responsible.

I have always had the greatest respect for him and it hurt that he passed away yesterday. Your Grandmother Susan was there attending him those last few days.

It does give me great joy to know that he did see you. We video chatted a 3 or four times before he passed away. The last time around Thanksgiving when you left such a wonderful impression on him. You made your Dad very happy and proud to be able to show you off to one of the people I respected most.

It always gave me great pride to know that such a great man was my Grandfather, and I think you can feel proud too to know that he got to know you and love you as well.

To me, one of the most essential keys to a long happy life is education. Education comes in different ways including formal and informal. Formal education is like going to school, reading textbooks, doing homework, and learning with professors. Informal education includes life experience and learning with your family. Both are important and have a place in your life. I actually want to study and learn with you too. Recently we’ve been learning a lot together, reading books, looking a pictures, and watching videos about Space, stars and planets. I think we have both have had a lot of fun. That is also important, the simple enjoyment of learning. However, even if learning is not always fun, it doesn’t make the lesson or knowledge any less important. I often hear people say things they learned in school often was useless later in life. I beg to disagree, I have thought every bit if knowledge large or small can help you. Sometimes, a bit of knowledge becomes useful when you didn’t expect it to be. But also take care not to hurt others, I use the Golden Rule as my moral guide. Do unto others as you would have then do unto to you. Basically, treat other as you would like to be treated.

Additionally, knowledge that could be used that just sits on the shelf, or knowledge without the courage to use it is impotent.

It’s what you do with that knowledge that counts. Learning to make key distinctions, and getting the knowledge that is necessary to do whatever it is that you want to do.

When I ask you where is your nose, you immediately can point right to your nose! You also know where your ears are when asked! When I ask you where is the red thing, or where is the star, you can point to it in the book. You make your Dad so proud that you are learning so quickly, and pay attention to things. Everyday you bring books to me and have me read them to you, honestly that just makes me burst with joy, to see you interested in the world and wanting to read with your Dad!

Living in China, being away from my Mom and Dad, Grandparents, and family in the USA has been hard on me. I wanted to take you and your Mom back to the USA early on, but its taken much longer than I anticipated to get through the paperwork, and still there is more to go.

I especially have wanted to show you to my Grandfather. He is about 90 years old now and his health is deteriorating. I wanted to show him my wonderful son and share with him feel the pride that I feel.

Fortunately, I was able to video chat with my Grandparents, your Great Grandparents, on Thanksgiving… and what a wonderful time it was. Grandfather was able to get online, he put his headphones on and could see you clearly on his screen. And you really responded, you ran back and forth across the floor, spun around, yelled out “Mamamama”, sit down on a chair, smiling and laughing, full of energy and vitality. On top of that, you even picked up a book and flipped through the pages on your own! And when I asked you to give something to your Mommy, you promptly took it and gave it to your Mommy. Then she gave you something and you immediately brought it over to me. You even waved to your Great Grandparents when they waved to you. My heart was just bursting with joy and pride, they could finally see you so active and smart, just as I see you. And were they ever impressed, both Grandmother and Grandfather were just so surprised and amazed that a little 14 month old child could be so responsive, coordinated and communicative.

That was the best Thanksgiving I have had in long time. I have yearned for my Grandparents to be able to see the wonderful you that I know, and they finally got a chance. It certainly makes me fell better. The next thing is to get all our documents together and approved and go to the USA together to spend time with the family in person.

My son, one thing I’ve learned is you’ll be much happier when you have control of your life. There are some things you may not be able to control like the weather, but you can control the way you use your money and the attitude you have about life. I like to have control over my money and I try to be positive about the future. I hope you’ll do the same.

We have a toy stick and hoops at home. For the longest time you could only take the hoops off the stick. Yesterday you figured out how to put the hoops over the top of the stick and let them slide down. You even stacked them with smaller and smaller hoops. It required some good hand eye coordination to do that, so it was a big accomplishment.
I was so excited I banged the drum and yelled horay!

Finally, I have a break from work! Since I moved over to the IT department of the company in late August, my days have been long. I used to only work 25 hours a week and I could spend more time with you, but my workdays now are 8 hours a day and about 45 minutes commute each way.

I could not really explain to you why I have been out so long, I’m sure you’re wondering where is Daddy? To be frank, our expenses had been mounting and we needed the money. Mommy takes care of you while Daddy is out making money for our family.

I did prefer to work in IT because it was much more interesting that working as an English teacher, but we had come up short of money so bad in July that  we were using our savings from America just to pay to the bills. So things had to change. Shanghai is a big modern city, but its also expensive. When I was working only 25 hours a week, I also made less money. Just paying the rent used almost 45% of my paycheck. We still needed to have money for utilities, food, let alone go out sometimes or save any money for an emergency. Now in IT I make more money, so we have enough to pay our bills and maybe save a little for the future, but the cost has been time. I just don’t have as much time as would like to spend with my son. I still get to wake up with you in the morning and play for about an hour. Then I go to work. When I come home you are usually awake still and we can play for another hour or two before you are ready to sleep. I usually get the weekends off, but China has a unusual system where they make people work weekend days to make up for national holidays. I really don’t understand it well because it seems senseless to me. So I had to work a couple of six day weeks just so I could have a vacation on the National Holiday.

So finally, that time has come! The first thing we did was go the park! I love going to parks with you. I think you really enjoy it too. We go to Mengqing-yuan, and Daning Linshi Park, Century and today we Aoqing National Park by the Huangpu River. I love to see you get out of the house and enjoy sunshine and green grass and trees. I think you also like to run around. Its hard to believe you didn’t know how to walk 3 or four months ago because now you can almost run around! You can climb over stuff, go uphill and down hill too. I remember the first time we came to a slope, that was a bit of a challenge, because you had always walked on a falt surface. But now you can go uphill and downhill without falling over!

Your Mom’s mother and father, Grandma and Grandpa Wang came to visit a couple of weeks ago for your birthday. I bought you lots of toys including a SpongeBob backpack, a giant drum and horn, a soccer ball and net, and a big birthday ice-cream cake that had the number one on it! I think you still didn’t get what it was all about, but you seemed happy.

One other development was I opened up the playpen. Until your birthday, you usually stayed in your playpen, it was fenced in. But on your birthday we opened it up to the bedroom area and more of the living room so you could have much more room to move around. You seemed to immediately get a kick out of the increased space and started exploring the house with enthusiasm. Of course we had to move away anything that could be dangerous to you and we still do. You also seemed to get more confidence and felt excited as you realized that you could get around the house like Mom and Dad.