Fall is finally here. The air is turning crisp. A few rebellious trees are starting to change colors. We don't leave the house without a sweater or a fleece. And the annual changing of the Halloween costume plans has begun in earnest.

The kids were a little late this year; we didn't start the Halloween discussion until almost August. It seems that most of the Halloween catalogs got delivered directly to the recycling bin, rather than the mailbox. Not sure how that happened? Halloween costume selection walks that fine line waiting long enough that they won't change their minds and waiting too long and risking a diminished costume selection. August was a great time to start the conversation, but here we are approaching the end of September and I feel like the clock is ticking.I am not the most creative or crafty mom on the planet, and while I would dearly love to provide them with unique, artistic, handmade costumes, the reality is that they can have a costume from Amazon.com or they can go as a robot pieced together from a lot of duct tape and whatever happens to be in the recycling bin the night before trick-or-treat.Each of the kids takes a drastically different approach to making their decision. A is the most creative with his choices. Last year, sometime around July, he announced that he was going to be "Tracer Bullet" for Halloween. If you know who or what a "Tracer Bullet" is, you are better than me. I had no idea that Calvin, of the Calvin and Hobbes comic, had an alter ego that was known as Detective Tracer Bullet.A is also the least likely to accept any compromise. He could not be a generic detective. He could not be a Humphrey Bogart-type 1940s private eye. He could not be Frank or Joe Hardy. He could not be Sherlock Holmes. Tracer Bullet and that was final. I tried to explain to him that constantly having to explain who he was might be a little bit of a drag, but he was insistent.We finally came up with the idea printing out a giant comic strip and then cutting out a frame for him to stand in as the character. It was a huge hit, but it may have set the bar pretty high as to what Mom and Dad are able to figure out when it comes to obscure Halloween costumes. He claims he has several ideas in the works, but hasn't revealed what they might be. I'm getting nervous.G was Spider-Man for about four years in a row. I get this kid. Laura Ingalls was my go-to costume for several years running, long dress, braids and a milk bucket. The boy knows what he likes, what works for him and he commits fully. A few weeks ago, I caught him climbing up to the top of the doorway by pressing his back and feet across the door and scooching his way up the frame.I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "I'm Spider-Man." Some things never change. Even when he wasn't Spider-Man, he still dabbled in the superhero genre and has been Batman, a ninja, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.He threw me for a loop this year, though. He wants to be a shark. Not just any shark, however, a MASCOT shark. Yes, like the kind that runs out on the field before a football game. I'm not entirely sure why the mascot aspect is important to him, but I'm thinking a shark costume will be relatively easy to track down and I'm sure we have a varsity sweater or jacket lying around somewhere. Odd, but doable.E is the trickiest one. I have to get her to commit 110 percent to one costume and then NEVER allow her to look at a costume website or go into a costume store, because if she sees other options she will want to be all of them. She is the child that changes her mind the second I hit the "confirm order" button.One year, we were all dressed to go to preschool in one costume, and about five minutes before we walked out the door, she demanded that we change into a leftover dance costume that sort of looked like a fairy. Never mind that the fairy costume was entirely inappropriate for October's weather, she was going as a fairy and that was final. She did agree to wear a long-sleeved T-shirt under the swimsuitlike costume, and as it happened to be a "Frozen" T-shirt, she referred to herself as a "Frozen Fairy" all day. No one else quite got the "Frozen" reference, but she was thrilled with herself, and that's all that really matters.She's currently planning a doctor costume this year and I am excited, because there is a perfectly good lab coat and doctor kit in the dress-up box. I'm also ready if she decides to be a veterinarian, with a few stuffed animals that look to be in need of some medical attention. I have an old scrub top and a surgical mask handy in case she decides to go as a surgeon. I also have a few Doc McStuffins items at the ready, in case she wants to go in character. Of course, all of this probably means that at the last minute, she's going to change her mind and want to go as a cheerleader, or astronaut, or something else completely unrelated to the bases that I have covered. Better get the duct tape and the cardboard boxes ready now!Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.