I spend half of my life with my mother and the other half with my father. My father lives with a twenty-pound cat named Tofu. He calls me his favorite daughter. I am an only child.

My father's apartment is quite different from any other person's living space. Except for my room, there is no furniture. He doesn't like sofas or any comfortable chairs, so he has only a drawing table, a desk and his bed. He spends a lot of time lying on the studio floor. That's how he thinks, he says. Then he does yoga

He has a big kitchen, and on top of the refrigerator is an old clock he winds every week for good luck. The last time the clock stopped, my father's car was towed(被警察拖走) and some other terrible things happened, so he has become very superstitious (迷信的) . When he goes out of town, he hires someone to feed Tofu and wind the clock so it won't stop.

The one thing he has plenty of is house rules. You have to take off your shoes when you come in. He won't allow anyone who wears a baseball cap into his house. He says only baseball players should wear baseball caps and only the catchers should wear them backward. Every time I go to stay in his house, he makes up a new rule. “House rule number 579, no television programs with laugh tracks！”he will say. But then be can never remember the numbers, so they change constantly.

The rule that he always enforces is the one that requires me to write a two-page essay anytime I want something. He didn't speak English until he was sixteen, and he had a hard time learning to write it, so he wants me to become a good writer at an early age. This ritual（仪式）started when I asked him if I could have my ears pierced when I was nine. He said it was very cruel and told me I couldn't do it until I was thirty-five. But l kept asking him, and he finally said that if I wrote an essay and I could persuade him in writing why I wanted holes in my ears, maybe he would say okay. I wrote my first essay for my father, and after one month of writing and rewriting, he finally. gave me his permission.

Love, joy, and the warm feeling of pulling together to get through tough times don’t cost a thing. But gifts do cost money. So, what’s a poor family to do?

When Christmas season rolled around again, I told my mother that the only thing I wanted was a pogo-stick (弹簧单高跷). However, my mother told me they were too expensive and that we simply couldn’t afford one.

On a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks before Christmas, my mom and dad told me we needed to go to Sears to pay our-credit card bill. While my mother and I were at the counter paying the bill, my dad said, “I’ll be right back — I need to see something in the tool department.” A little later, my dad came back with a long box. I remember wondering at that very moment if it was a pogo-stick in that box.

When we arrived back at home, my dad put the box in the garage. While my parents were busy with their chores, I quietly walked out to the garage and found the box. I was so excited and I knew that as soon as I opened that magical box my bright, shiny pogo-stick would appear. No such luck! Inside the box was a silly old broom. And so Christmas morning was both great and disappointing. I got some nice gifts but I didn't get the present that I really wanted.

After all the wrapping paper was cleaned up my dad said he needed to tend to something in the garage. When he came back in, he was carrying a beautiful pogo-stick. I couldn’t believe it! My parents probably got quite a laugh from the trick they played on me.

Although we didn’t have much money, my parents gave me the most important gift of all: lots of love. My dad worked hard to provide for us and my mother knew how to stretch a dollar. That was over 60 years ago and I still think about those wonderful Christmas memories every year during the holiday season. My parents were the best and I will never forget all the joy they brought into my life.

In a little house filled with laughter and love, there was a boy named Charlie who was always struggling with his studies. Because of his low grades, he often came home disheartened.

One day, Charlie’s mother noticed her son’s situation. As Charlie stared sadly at his textbooks, she sat beside him with a warm smile that made the room a little brighter. “Why don’t we turn this into a game?” she suggested, her voice gentle and encouraging.

Together, they created fun quizzes and made colorful flashcards. They turned historical dates into a song and math problems into a treasure hunt Charlie’s mother believed in learning with joy, and she never stopped smiling, even when Charlie felt like giving up. As weeks passed, Charlie began to smile too, his fear of lessons slowly disappearing. He wasn’t the top of his class, but he was climbing, one cheerful step at a time. Then came the day of the big science test. Charlie walked into class with a nervous heart but remembered his mother’s encouraging smiles. When the results came, his name was at the top! In disbelief, he rushed home to find a note on the fridge, “The true test was believing in yourself, and that, you have done extremely well!”

But along with the note was a mysterious envelope, sealed (封口) with a smiley face sticker (贴纸). It wasn’t from his mother, and Charlie couldn’t guess who else knew about their little secret. Who could it be from, and what could be inside? Charlie’s journey of learning was about to get even more interesting.