So, several weeks ago, at the beginning of August, I found myself once again in the aisles of Babies R Us. I guess I spend most of my weekends traveling to and from BRU to pick up on thing or another. At the front of this store, conveniently located right by the checkout is a little area where they keep seasonal items. When I was there this past August they already had out their Halloween costumes.

At least the first offering of costumes. My friend Tracey warned me not to buy the first thing I saw. Having had the experience herself she said that sure, that stuff was pretty cute, but more was in store in the coming weeks, especially as the actual holiday drew near.

My five month old son is clearly too little to be swayed by one costume over another or costumes in general. Heck, all he knows about BRU is that it's a place filled with fun, fun, fun that makes mommy (and daddy) crazy. I don't think he's the one being marketed to in this case. It's me. It's always been me, and daddy. And this time it worked.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, so even though it was the beginning of August and too hot to even think about Halloween I jumped on what I thought was an opportunity to get the costume situation taken care of far in advance. You know how things go--you make all these plans about what you're going to do and then, bam, life is busy and you find yourself with a day to go and none of what you desired to have accomplished.

So I bought a costume. And it was ten dollars. I felt like that was a steal. And that's another way they get you. Most folks are willing to spend ten bucks on just about anything. For me, I was spending ten dollars knowing I'd never have or make the time to put together a costume for the wee one on my own, even though in my mind I had some elaborate get up planned for all of us.

The marketing department at BRU knows this all too well. They also know that they can get me to buy a costume now--what we bought was simply but effective and practical (Gosh, did I just say that? I must be someone's mother)--and then roll out the cuter, more elaborate and pricier items to tempt me with later.

What those marketers don't know about me is that while I can't resist anything cute for my kid, one will do just fine. I have his costume and no matter what they roll out in October I'm sticking with what I have. At least I keep telling myself that.

We'll see. Like I said, Halloween is my favorite holiday--over my own birthday, even, which these days is so meaningless to me now that I have a little one to celebrate every other holiday (and day, and minute)--so I can see a smidge of me giving in to some adorable little bib or other small item they roll out.

What do you think? Is it too early for the stores to be putting out merchandise for a holiday two months away, or is it really keying in to offering things when parents need them because they don't have a lot of time?

Adorable photo of babies in costume by TedsBlog.