Positioned like a pumpkin stem on the soft underside of her round little tummy is Charlotte Gordon's insulin pump.

The 4-year-old has type 1 diabetes. If she wants a piece of Halloween candy, insulin must be injected into her body to turn those carbohydrates into energy.

As parents across the land search for ways to make Halloween all the fun without all the sugar rush, for the Gordons, it's a matter of life or death. Six hours could mean the difference between an outing and a coma.

In their family of four — dad is Lt. Col. Richard Gordon, mom is Staci, and big sis is Ruby — Charlotte's health is paramount.

"It's constantly on your mind. You can never take a break, because we're always trying to keep her balanced," Staci Gordon said.

They keep the emphasis on the fun side of the holiday — taking out scads of Halloween-themed library books, Netflixing "The Addams Family" and making plenty of pumpkin-bearing crafts as part of their home-school curriculum. For good measure, the costumes will be patriotic, since they're both learning American history. It's only the second Halloween that the entire family will be together. Dad was deployed the first three Halloweens of Charlotte's life.

Walk into their neat home on a quiet street at Schofield Barracks and your eyes are greeted with orange, the color of the season. There are jack-o-lanterns, friendly ghosts and other Halloween decorations in practically every room, making it easy to believe Staci Gordon when she says that before having kids, Halloween was her favorite holiday — bumped only by Christmas.

As a matter of fact, when Charlotte was diagnosed with diabetes, Staci said her first fear was, "What are we going to do about Halloween?"

A look around the room now makes Staci giggle.

"I probably need to get counseling," she said. "It all stems from my mother. It's all her fault."

Indeed, Staci's mother has shipped boxes and boxes of Halloween-themed tricks and treats their way: kitchen gadgets like spatulas with ghouls on them, brightly colored dish towels, even decorated Halloween bathroom towels. Oh, and don't forget the Halloween Lucky Charms cereal. Really.

Don't mistake this for a no-candy house. Dad would have none of that.

"We have to hide our candy from him," said big sis Ruby, pretending to glower at her dad.

"Hey!" he shot back with a sheepish grin.

These are no treat amateurs, mom admitted: "We're professional when it comes to goodies."

It's not a bad word here.

"We use candy to get (Charlotte) up when she's low," Staci Gordon explained. "... Candy is a lifesaving tool. I keep Skittles in her diabetic bag. A lot of times, the right amount of grams can save her from having a seizure."

But the family is also intimately aware that candy has carbohydrates, which may send Charlotte out of whack. When Staci picks up a bag of Kit Kats, she automatically flips it over to check nutritional information.

The word "free" has a different connotation here — for them, "free" is short for carb-free.

The change in vocabulary and the constant vigilance is just part of the deal, explain the elder Gordons. While it's been a difficult three years in some respects — Staci's voice drops to nearly a whisper when she talks about the two times she's had to pull out the emergency Glucagon kit — in others ways, it's gotten better.

There was a time when Staci would have to both poke and inject Charlotte, diagnosed as a tot, up to 10 times a day. The poke of Charlotte's finger helps measure her glucose level, to see if she needed an injection of insulin into "her bummy or her tummy," as mom said. (Bummy here is the hips, not buttocks, fyi.)

While the finger gets poked, Charlotte's new pump eliminates the injections. Staci tells visitors this as she unzips the fanny pack on Charlotte's hip.

"It's traumatizing to give seven to 10 shots a day for a mom of a 2-year-old," she said, eyes fluttering heavenward. Still, changing the pump is no fun, which happens about every three days.

"You live with it," said the no-nonsense Staci. "You only cry when they cry. I just always have to remember, she's here, she's here, otherwise ... "

An estimated 5,000 have type 1 diabetes in Hawai'i, though the number of children is not known. According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, 200 children a day develop type 1 diabetes, a number that is increasing at a rate of 3 percent each year — the fastest in preschool children, which is about 5 percent per year.

The Gordons don't make candy the enemy because Staci wants to keep eating disorders at bay. And so far, it works — "if candy is laying around, they don't sneak it," she said. "I don't use treats as bribe, because it puts power into that."