Halloween holy grail

Do you have one of these in your house?



Yours may be a hollow plastic pumpkin with a handle on it, or perhaps you've chosen something less conspicuous, like a cookie jar or a plain paper bag.

At any rate, if you had trick-or-treaters in your household last weekend, you're probably the proud owner of some type of vessel that contains a veritable banquet of everything from Whoppers to gummy skeletons.

In our house, the thing is calling out to us night and day.

C asks to "organize" the contents of our treat bucket several times each day and then proceeds to obsess over which piece he would like to eat when he is at long last allowed to sample another tiny morsel.

L asks for a piece of chocolate after every meal as if it were a bit of entitlement she earned from her blocks and blocks of on-foot candy hunting.

At night I sneak Twizzler bits and tiny chocolate nuggets for myself when no one is looking, and then feel immediate leaps of in-utero appreciation from Tiny Baby, who has no-doubt been Jonesing for his or her sugar fix all day long. (Sneaky little bugger, coercing me into stealing from his siblings' hard-earned booty.)

It doesn't help that our treasure trove actually looks at us. It has eyes ... that follow us as we walk passed, I'm sure of it.



And, I think, this harmless-looking treat tub is rapidly turning two sweet pre-schoolers in this household rotten.

I'm currently hatching a plan to eliminate the temptation all-together by way of the trash can later tonight--after I remove my very favorite items first, of course.