My neighbor, Gracie, is two (AND A HALF, she will tell you) years old. She is gratuitously adorable, it’s a little over the top how cute she is. Being so little, she doesn’t remember much of her life, but one thing she remembers with remarkable clarity is last Halloween. Last October she got to wear a Minion costume all day at school. After school, her parents took her to neighbor’s houses and she got insane amounts of candy in her little pumpkin head basket. If you think about it, it’s a pretty memorable thing.

The issue (her parents call this a problem, but I don’t) is that now she has it stuck in her little head that “Trick or Treat” are magic words. And all she has to do to get candy is to say them. I am not helping this situation at all. Whenever I see her outside she jumps up and down and says “hello Andrea! Trick or Treat!” and then I automatically jump up and down with her and say “Treat!” and then we run into my house and eat Oreos. Now, I think this whole thing is fine, I mean eventually she will grow out of this, I doubt she will use that phrase on a college professor. Her mom came over today to ask me to stop the madness, though. She doesn’t want her kid to think that every person on earth is waiting to give her candy. I think it’s totally fine to think that, she will certainly find out soon enough that it’s not true, why not let a two (AND A HALF) year old live with that for another few months? Finally, we compromised, and now I have to go buy sugar free fruit snacks, which is really no treat, but it’s better than nothing. Fun fact – it is impossible to get Oreo crumbs completely off a child’s face, no matter how much milk you give them.