Halloween with a toddler: Whose idea was this anyway?

For most people, your child's first Halloween is when they are a non-walking baby.  You dress them up as a Pea in a Pod or a Pumpkin, you take lots of pictures, you may take them to a relative's house to show them off and then you are back home

in bed by 7:30.  OK, so this is how it was for us last year.  Little did we know that drama that would be this year.  Now Ethan can walk and now all the relatives expect him to be a little Trick-or-Treater and to have some fantastic costume.  The pressure to perform is on except there appears to be a great lull between costumes for 1 to 2 year olds.  My husband went out looking twice and I thought we might end up with a Halloween-free year this year because of his frustration.  However, The Boy must entertain so we finally settled on something.  Now we are faced with the dilemma of taking Ethan out in a crazy costume to get a bag full of candy that we don't normally let him have.  What can you do to make Halloween as painless as possible with a toddler?

• If you have the costume already, let your child get used to it now.  Ethan has a chicken costume this year.  We let him run around in it in Target before we bought it for him.  He didn't seem too tortured by it.  That was great because it was the only costume his size.  But the important thing is now we know that he may not (you never know with toddlers) lose his mind when we put it on him for The Big Night.  That and we are getting our $13.99 worth by putting it on him now.  He is small and doesn't know the difference anyway.  He's just glad to have an opportunity to make people laugh.
• Take your child places where they are going to create the most happiness.  Last year we only took Ethan to 3 houses on Halloween night.  They were the houses of our elderly neighbors.  We weren't looking for free candy for mom or dad (although that can be a perk).  We just knew that these were the people that would be most touched to see our little baby boy dressed up like a cowboy.  Every single one told us repeatedly how Ethan had made their night.  It was worth all the effort to find the outfit just to see them smile.
• Don't worry about the candy.  You don't have to give your toddler any candy if you don't want to.  Most kids don't even understand what is going on.  If you feel like you want to, you can give up a piece of candy and hide the rest.  With Ethan, we just swap out the candy for the healthier treats such as crackers and pretzels.  Ethan calls everything a "cookie" anyway so he always feels like he is getting away with something if you offer him a cracker and call it a cookie.  If your child is older and understands the bounty of Halloween, setting a limit is always a good idea and being extra generous one night of the year doesn't seem too unreasonable.  "You can have THREE pieces of candy tonight and we are going to put the rest away.  You can have a piece tomorrow (and insert a reason or a requirement to get the candy if you feel that is necessary).  Or you can just let them have at the bag and deal with the sugar blowout on the other side.  You are the parent and you get to decide.

These suggestions will probably only work on a child that is between newborn and around 2 (and who doesn't have an older sibling around to explain the glories of Halloween candy).  I can only imagine how the "MINE" combination and the discovery of candy by next year is going to make it all the more challenging.  Good luck.