Dear Matt,
Happy 6th birthday! ❤
Inspired by
’s Dear Lyra, I’m going to write you a letter every year on your birthday, and maybe more.It has been a great year. You just crossed a big milestone in your life: you graduated from preschool and started kindergarten last August! I still remember the first day I drove you to school. I was so worried that you may need some time to adjust to all the changes, leaving your old friends at preschool and getting to know kids and teachers you never met. But you seemed to be pretty chill about it. On our way to the school, you were excited and happy, which really helped calm daddy down. Thanks for that.
When I picked you up from school, you proudly told me that “Daddy, I made three new friends today!”
Before the school started, we made a road trip to south California to visit the Legoland and Disneyland. That was a lot of fun.
You’re still a number one fan of Lego. You said you wanted to live in Legoland forever. I’m amazed that you can just sit there and read Lego instruction books for a long time even without Lego pieces. I used to always ask you to put pieces from the same set together so you can assemble the set later. But you always liked to mix them together. I came up with many ways to help (or sometimes make) you get organized. The Lego Movie really changed my mind. I decided to let you play in whatever way you want, even if it means we will never put any of the bought sets together.
Then magic happened. You made a lot of super cool stuff that I think are even better than the bought sets! As they call it in the movie, you are a true Master Builder.
Besides Lego, you picked up two new hobbies this year — Chess and Pokemon!
On your 5th birthday, we got you a card chess game for kids, with which you randomly draw cards and play the move on that card. You got bored with that quickly and started playing real chess. We tried going to classes, but neither of us liked it. So we decided to play chess just for fun. Playing chess with me after dinner became a routine. You’re getting better and better every day. When I was not around, you tried to teach Ethan to play chess with you, but he was more interested in stacking the pieces together to make a tower.
Your most recent gem is Pokemon. I didn’t grow up with Pokemon in China, so I knew very little about them except this little game. But now I’m an expert, and you know 100x more than me. You worked really hard to read Pokemon cards and learned a lot of new words by doing that.
Hi5 to your mom for designing a super awesome birthday party for you in the Pokemon theme. She handmade a Pokeball and a personalized Pokemon Trainer badge for everyone who came. It was such an amazing party and we all had a great time. We should convince your mom to switch career to be a kid party planner.
You still like soccer, but also started playing basketball. We watched a lot of games together. Stephen Curry is your hero. You enjoy practicing his moves. You also started ice skating, biking, and had your first snowboarding class in Tahoe!
You like drawing, mostly drawing Pokemons nowadays. You also love making books of your own. You just finished making a story book a couple weeks ago about a fox vs. the world. Your school pays a lot of attention to reading and writing, which is great!
You have a big heart. You chose not to receive gifts on your 6th birthday party, and raised more than $300 for sick children. You love everyone around you. You want to help others. Ethan became more and more inseparable from you. He just loves you and wants to be with you all the time. You also love him and take care of him, like a big brother.
I wish you a wonderful year ahead. I’m so proud to be your dad, son.
With all my love,
Dad
