My Drunk 3-Year Old

Yes, I said drunk. Not on alcohol, but we've discovered that when this wee one gets a dose a sugar in her veins, she literally becomes intoxicated by it. It all started a year ago when we took her trick-or-treating for Halloween when she was 2 and a half. We have never given her much on the sweets side so didn't give her more than one piece of chocolate that night, and put the bag of candy up on our buffet for the night after we tucked her in.

Meanwhile, I'm chatting with my husband in the office and about 20 minutes after we put E to bed, she comes bobbling in to us sputtering something about dinosaurs and her face was covered in brown (this was our first clue)... She managed to somehow sneak out of bed, vault the kitchen table to the buffet to get to the bag of candy and all the pieces of chocolate wrappers were there (licked clean), but alas, the chocolate was gone. She was in some kind of chocolate-induced delirium and was mumbling all sorts of incohesive thoughts, but was more than happy to show us her pile - she was like 'hey! look what I found! I bet you guys didn't know THIS was here! Want some? It'll make you see funny pictures of dinosaurs dancing around the kitchen!"

I think every child has some kind of Halloween candy-related story, so I didn't think much else of it, until she went to her first 'big-girl' birthday party the other night where she apparently had cake, ice cream and POP!?! She came home and I quite literally felt like I was experiencing the first "Mom drags home drunk teenager and holds her hair back, then puts her to bed" episode... except E's 3. She was again mumbling something or other and then would look at me with an ear-to-ear smile, throw her arms around my neck (while she's on the toilet, I might add) and say "I had too much sweets... I love you mommy. I love chocolate too. Want to sing?" Then she'd start laughing hysterically. Then she was crying. And then she did some super-human monkey-like freak show maneuver where she physically climbed up the bathroom door by merely hoisting herself on the door handles. Seriously.

This year, I'm going to be the mom everybody hates on Halloween and I'll make some kind of unbuttered popcorn balls that magically stick together, or something like edamame suckers to hand out and insist my kids throw away "all that sugary junk." Well... perhaps I'll still sort through it and pick out the Reese's and the Butterfingers for myself...