Tonight, on the drive back from our trick-or-treating excursion on the Plaza, Steve allowed Stella to consume an entire snack-sized Milky Way bar. Refined sugar, cornstarch-laden milk chocolate and nougat is apparently the trifecta that is the toddler equivalent to crack.

During dinner we tried counteracting the effects of the sugar high with some artery clogging cheese pizza and milk (doesn’t milk counteract everything?) but soon realized that, really, there was no way to unring that bell. Throughout the meal, she would repeatedly look at me and say, “What doing, Daddy?” then proceed to break down into fits of giggly laughter. Calling me by her father’s name is the cornerstone to her whole schtick these days, and she just never seems to tire of it.

She refused for a single conversation to take place where she was not front and center stage. Whereas most people use the conventional interjection of “Excuse Me” or “Hey, look at this” or “Over Here! Over Here!” to get one’s attention, Stella has adapted a method that is effective, yet not exactly adhering to common rules of etiquette. Lately, when she needs your full and undivided attention, she will simply cut in by screeching “BEEEEEEEEE!” at the top of her lungs. Basic human instinct is to stop EVERYTHING you are doing when you hear this noise, thereby leaving her with the perfect opening to ask you the highly important question like “What doing, Daddy?” As I said, highly effective – yet not quite adhering to the Emily Post standards manual.

As I sit here writing, I realize that I am living inside Stella’s House-of-Sugar pinball game. She has run back and forth from living room to kitchen about 15 times and demanded that Steve play play dough, read a story, do bath-time (with ALL the toys), read a story, let’s chase Rosie, one more story, BEEEEEEE!

This is the part of the story where I wonder out loud if taking all of my child’s Halloween candy to work and pretending the whole ritual never occurred makes me a bad parent. I mean honestly, by next year my chances of manipulating the situation will have evaporated completely. Just give me this one, last, fleeting chance at control of a situation.

So, as we head off to an evening of sugar crashing, I will leave you all whith a photo montage of the days leading up to and including the year of the ladybug.