Report cards, ice cream, and... hot sauce?

The evening was looking to be quite hectic, but then Darby's game was cancelled due to weather (30-something wind chill and wet fields), which calmed things down a bit. After Shelby's fencing lesson I took the girls to dinner and ice cream as promised. I had promised them ice cream this morning if both of them got As and Bs on their report cards. So it turns out all the extra work I've had them putting in has paid off. Shelby's reading grade was border line and we've been reading a lot to get that grade up (which it was). And Darby had three Cs on her last progress report, so I've had her doing a bunch of extra work to bring those up and keep her from breaking her honor roll streak (which is still intact).


While at dinner (we had barbecue), I did one of the stupidest things I've done in some time with regard to the kids. Shelby got a burger (she's picky, didn't want BBQ), and she wanted ketchup on her burger, so I grabbed the ketchup, covered the whole bottom of her patty with it, and gave it back to her before I realized... hey, that's... not... ketchup. Right after I put the "ketchup" bottle down I noticed another bottle labeled ketchup, meaning I put something ELSE on her burger. Further evaluation determined I had put HOT SAUCE(!) all over Shelby's burger.

(enormous amounts of hot sauce on pickiest child's food... BRILLIANT!)

Those of you who know Shelby know that she is borderline obsessive-compulsive, and would claim to taste that one drop of soda in her water if you poured out a glass of soda and put water in it. So this was an interesting dilemma I put myself in.

I did the best I could to scrape the hot sauce off of the burger and bun, and then I put an excessive amount of ketchup in the area of the sauce to dilute the taste/effect. But of course that did little good, even if it really worked. The whole rest of the meal, any little nibble Shelby took of the contaminated burger she followed with a shriek in horror at how "hot" it was, she took a drink, fanned her mouth, and then ate fifteen french fries to "cool down" before her next bite of hot-burger. This was all even though I had Darby take a bite of the burger and let me know she couldn't taste the hot sauce. Everything I expected out of the situation came to pass, and it was all of my own doing. I eventually gave up (let Shelby not finish the burger I destroyed), and both the girls had their ice cream before we headed home. I wish I had some video clips to share those classic Shelby moments. It was a sight to behold in dramitization prowess.


So now it's the fourth quarter of the school year and Darby wants me to lighten up on her (not have her do so much extra work). Should I do that only to have to kick into high gear the last half of the quarter if she slacks off again, or should we press on with our more stout work habits? I'm still pondering...