Yes, it's mid-September, and already the "Halloween Superstores" are sprouting up, like mushrooms after a rain, in empty storefronts all over the Bay Area. Can pumpkin patches be far behind? At any rate, there are unique challenges for parents of preschoolers and the whole costume-shopping experience. First: You will go to one of these Halloween shops, whether you like it or not. It's unavoidable, unless you keep the kids blindfolded in their car seats so they remain blissfully unaware of the store's existence, which, come to think of it, isn't a bad idea, since it makes those McDonalds signs pretty hard to spot, too.

Of course once you're in the store, you'll only get so far until you see something truly scary and have to maneuver said preschooler away from said scary thing, a faux dismembered corpse lawn decoration or whatever, on to the part of the store where they keep the slightly less scary Spongebob Squarepants and Clifford costumes. Inevitably your sensitive child will round a corner and run smack into the life-size animatronic zombie action figure lawn ornament thing, that will scare the bejeezus out of him. If it doesn't, it will later, since he's going to wake up at 1 in the morning with nightmares about the thing.

That's what happened last year. Anyhow, that's what I think happened, as the trauma of the whole event blocked certain parts of it from my memory. For what it's worth, I find those places kind of scary, too. For some reason Halloween decorations and costumes seem to be a lot gorier and raunchier than I remember as a kid, but maybe I was so traumatized that I blotted that out, too.

That said, maybe it's best to buy your costumes online. There are scores of online storefronts selling just about any costume you can think of. Check out HalfPriceCostumes.com , BuyCostumes.com , and CostumeCraze.com , all of which have a huge selection of costumes for kids and adults. And it's still early enough to order!