"How giving choices results in more thought on my part" or "decision making = Frankenstein"

Howdy - Chris here.

I think a big part of life is learning to make decisions, learning to think through the consequences of our decisions, and ultimately dealing with those consequences.
In keeping with that line of thought I (we) make it a point to let Lucy clearly know when she's being faced with a choice, and we don't give a choice when there isn't really one. Things like "are you going to be naughty and keep fighting me about this, or are you going to cooperate and get your shoes on so we can go?" We take it a step further and let her know what the consequences of each choice are - "if you keep being naughty, you're going to (fill in blank with something moderately to severely unpleasant), but if you'll put your shoes on we can go to (fill in blank with something fun). We've developed a pretty consistent habit of giving her choices she can think through, and push her just a bit to think really hard.
Well, I'll be danged if it isn't working. I'm recently faced with Lucy suggesting her own third choice, completely outside the two I've been giving. Like "well, do you want to play on the swing while work on the truck, or help Mommy inside". Her response was "umm... how about I help you fix the truck?". I appreciate the help, but I already have one person on the job who doesn't know how to fix it. I tried a work around and let her know I didn't want her under the truck with me because she could get hurt, but it backfired and she took it further - "maybe Mommy needs you to help her, or you could play on the swings with me". When I need to, I'll just hold to the hard choice and do what I need to do, but fortunately right then I had some time, so we played for a while (staying out of Deana's way is sometimes the best way to help her).
Fortunately Lucy doesn't have that fake "I'm so mature that I can speak like a much older person" tone. I'd have to have her deported or something if she did, because that kind of pretense in anybody, especially a kid, drives me nuts (probably because I was like that frequently as a kid, and still tend towards it now. FYI - it's a sign of insecurity). She does have a great vocabulary, and is getting her grammar down pretty well. She still has her little-kid lisp, but it's fading, so I'm not too worried about it now (I was for a bit there - I grew up as "Chrithh Hayethh" until a great speech therapist helped me out of it). And Lucy does have great reasoning skills. She's still a cute little emotional four year old, like she should be. I wouldn't change that for anything, but I rest much easier leaving for school or work in the morning knowing that Lucy has a fairly good understanding of what injury is and that her cooperation with Deana can make the difference between both of them having a good or bad day.

Now I just need to figure out how to work around "well, it's okay for me to have this ice cream before bed, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow".

Tangent - I flipped my eating habits and moved most of my calories to earlier in the day, with a very small meal towards evening, and lots of snacking on OK stuff through the day. Dessert is post-breakfast, if at all. I've dropped about 7 pounds in the past two months! (3 months ago I couldn't fit into my Latin dance slacks - the slim-fitting type with a really high waist band - and they were obscenely tight. They fit fine for the competition in Atlanta last weekend though).