My daughter just turned 1. She was born Oct. 30, known as Mischief Night where my husband and I grew up, so for a few minutes one year ago, we toyed with the idea of naming her Mischief. We didn't. But I believe she heard us.

A few months ago, my family moved into the wild on the outskirts of a college town. We can live our whole lives without ever seeing the university if we so wanted, but we feel the impact of our proximity to academia daily. Or should I say nightly? With the hours our daughter has been keeping, she is living like a college student.

Little Miss Mischief has recently decided that she does not go to bed at 8 p.m. like her 4-year-old brother. Oh, no. She won't even consider hitting the hay until it's nearly midnight. And then there is the partying. Oh, yes, the late-night partying. It begins around 3 a.m., when my daughter decides she is ready to rock out. She is up. She sings. She yells. She plays. She demands attention and constant vigilance. And then, like her academic peers, she passes out some time just before sunrise. If she had her druthers, she would not wake until noon.

I remember those days. I loved those days. But I was 18; this kid is half her life away from even being 18 months.

There must be something in the water. Is it even water? Can water sustain its purity so close to a university? Perhaps it morphs into Coors Light and Ritalin. One sip from the faucet and you're ready to study for the next 27 hours, with intermittent bouts of breaking up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, running naked laps around the football field, crushing beer cans against your forehead, making up with your boyfriend/girlfriend and eating three jumbo bags of Cool Ranch Doritos in a single sitting. The city pipes carrying our so-called water should probably be under investigation. A single flame could probably set the entire underground system ablaze. When "water" really just becomes the remnants of the $2 holler university kids like to refer to as vodka lines the city plumbing, it's a fireball waiting to happen.

Perhaps that is why my baby is partying down to all hours of the night. Carpe diem. Live now. Go wild. Suck out the marrow from life while you still can. She is quite fatalistic for a baby.

Or maybe this collegiate lifestyle Little Miss Mischief has recently embraced is caused not by what is in the water but by what is in the air. A small town such as ours can only take so much smoke from the cloves, hookahs and joints before we get our own scholarly smog. The students who live for incense and vaping aren't helping, either. And sure, there are some known benefits. Unlike the smog in Los Angeles or Beijing, scholarly smog is such that you can poke your head into it and come out understanding all the mathematics behind the Callan-Symanzik equation, though you also come out believing that pajamas are perfectly good interview clothes — if ironed, of course.

A friend suggested that my daughter's recent engagement in moon worshipping has nothing to do with our proximity to a university. Rather, she believes that it is simply the age, that the late-night partying is happening in a temporary time of development. That may be true, but what I took from her statement was something quite different. Yes, this must have to do with her age! Specifically, my daughter's birthday. Miss Mischief isn't up at 3 a.m. because she wants to party with us. She is up because she is seeking revenge.

When my son turned 1, we threw him an epic pool party. There were over 30 people. A billion presents. A Costco cake. Balloons! Streamers! Fanfare! And I hated every minute of it. I'm a terrible hostess. The whole thing stressed me out, and I just wanted it to be over. So for my daughter, I decided not to do any of it. No party. No presents. No balloons. She got a cupcake, and we sang her "Happy Birthday." That's it.

I thought it would be OK. What harm could it do?

None to her but plenty to me. Because since Mischief Night, Miss Mischief has not slept a single night.

Katiedid Langrock is author of the book "Stop Farting in the Pyramids," available at http://www.creators.com/books/stop-farting-in-the-pyramids. Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor. To find out more about her and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.