This Week's Favorite Child Award goes to . . .

Melody!

1. In a hurry to leave for Ladies' Bible Class on Wednesday, I grab peanut butter, bread, jelly, a knife and a package of juice boxes. At lunch time I am making sandwiches. I get to Charlie's and Melody says, "Mommy! Charlie is allergic to strawberries and that is strawberry jelly!" I thought I'd grabbed the cherry, but I had Melody to save the day.

2. Today Melody walks into the pediatrician's office and climbs onto the exam table. She shows me 'how a lady sits in a dress' then lifts her skirt to carefully reveal her thighs, but not her panties. "I am ready for my shot!" she announces.

When the time for the shot comes, she is calm and ready. While the nurse frets over her, she just replies with, "I am very brave." Even during the shot, she does not flinch, let alone cry.

The nurse, impressed with her braveness, gives her five large stickers instead of one. She proclaims that she is glad she has five because she then has enough for everyone in the family. We go home and she shares the stickers. She even lets Dixie pick her own instead of giving her the one she wants her to have.

3. Yesterday, Melody very excitedly explains:
"Mommy! Your back is called your back because it is the back of your tummy! And you have a back of your foot--it is called a heel. And a back of your leg and back of your tummy and it is called your back because it is in the back!"

Dixie gets an honorable mention for referring to her big toe as her 'thumb toe.'

4. Melody was quiet today. When I went to investigate why, I discovered she had gotten out one Clorox wipe, shut the lid on the package, then went to the bathroom to clean the counter, sink, bathtub and toilet. Why? "I'm Cinderella!"

5. Later I was making supper and feeding Charlie a snack when screaming erupted from my bedroom. I go in to find two hysterical little girls. Melody explained that Dixie kept telling her how to play and she didn't want to do it that way, but Dixie kept telling her over and over so Melody hit her in the face.

I asked Dixie what she had done to make Melody cry. "Nothing." I asked if this was the truth and she said that it was. I asked Melody why she was crying " Because I was so mean to my sister! And I don't like to be mean!"