freckle juice!

I finished reading Freckle Juice with the kindergartens this afternoon. This is a great chapter book to read aloud to children who are making the transition from picture books to chapter books. It's not too long... only five chapters, and there are a lot of illustrations.

Here's the gist of the story: Andrew wants freckles, so he won't have to take as many baths. He buys a secret freckle juice recipe for 50 cents from Sharon, a conniving classmate. The ingredients are all normal household items, but when mixed together, they're disgusting.

I would know because today, in honor of finishing Freckle Juice, we decided to give Sharon's recipe a try!

We made it outside - I was anticipating a lot of excited shouting and the slim possibility of some urping, too. Here's a photo of the ingredients in a cooler: onions, lemon wedges, mayonnaise, mustard, pepper, salsa (a substitution for ketchup), olive oil, salt, vinegar, and grape juice. At this point, I was confident that no one was going to be brave (crazy?) enough to try whatever concoction we ended up with.

Here's an action shot of the olive oil going in. Mayo and grape juice give the mixture that lovely lavender shade... blech!

Some final stirring. Remember how I thought there was going to be shouting? I was completely wrong - the children were nearly silent with concentration. It could have been with fear, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't because they actually WANTED TO TRY THE FRECKLE JUICE!!!

Like a broken record, I kept insisting, "You don't have to try it." It didn't work. I tried, "It was just an experiment. There's a yummy snack waiting for us inside." No luck.

I even tried, "Freckle juice is a hoax! Do you really think I got my freckles from drinking that stuff?" (I was reluctant to go there because it felt a little like going into "Santa's-not-real" territory.) They pretty much rolled their eyes and politely explained that my freckles were probably the result of inconsistent sunscreen use. Seriously!

They wanted their freckle juice. That meant I had to try it, too. So, I need your help. Has anyone out there made and tasted Sharon's secret recipe and lived to talk about it?!! If so, please tell me that we're all going to be okay. I haven't felt sick yet, but it's only been 7 hours...