Shopping for spawn

By Heather Smith

OVER THE PAST year, several of my friends have begun engaging in the novel practice of growing their own small humans. I view this with both pleasure (finally! tiny victims to force silly hats on!) and unease (if production rates remain steady, I am going to be buying a lot of presents ... ).

In my own days as a tiny human, presents usually consisted of brand-name plastic toys with long, brushable hair, or cardboard puzzles depicting kittens peeking out of baskets. However, such gifts don't necessarily cut it with today's non-PCB-intaking, sweatshop-free urban child.

Local boutiques have responded to the gift-giving anxieties of my kind with a deluge of organic cotton, cruelty-free itsy-bitsy T-shirts. The T-shirts are usually silk-screened with a picture of a countercultural figure like Lou Reed to set Baby apart from all the other children in playgroup wearing Che Guevara onesies.

But other options exist. Kali finger puppets. Wee rain boots with dinosaur fins. "Grow your own bacteria" kits. A host of San Francisco shops sell wares for the quirky (or doomed-to-be-quirky) children produced by city residents and their ilk. A few, for your perusal:

Book nerds will need to visit Cover to Cover Booksellers, in Noe Valley (1307 Castro, SF. 415-282-8080, www.covertocoversf.com), home to the most comprehensive kids' book section in San Francisco, with the possible exception of the public library. The store also carries Charles Dickens action figures ($8.50) and the aforementioned Smartlab Bacteria Farm ($12.99).

Also in Noe Valley is Ark Toys Books and Crafts (3845 24th St., SF. 415-821-1257), ideal for the gently OCD children of all your computer programmer friends. Block sets range in theme from baroque to Middle Eastern, and train sets jostle for shelf space with Ein-O's Box Kit: Air Pollution ($7.25). And an impressively eclectic toy selection includes Kali and Ganesh finger puppets (75¢) as well as obsessively detailed, German-made miniature food sets.

Much to my surprise, Haight Street is a hot spot for clever children's merchandise. In addition to the predictable tie-dyed kiddie Ts that Haight retailers are duty bound to carry, Kids Only (1608 Haight, SF. 415-552-5445) is packed with the kind of trendy clothing other fashionably sparse boutiques only carry one or two samples of. Styles range from "the littlest burner" to "renaissance fair aficionado" to "tiny swinger." Kids Only is also home to those dinosaur boots ($18) and an equally fabulous dinosaur raincoat, complete with orange shoulder spikes ($28.95).

A block farther down Haight, Kweejibo Clothing Co. (1580 Haight, SF. 415-552-3555, www.kweejibo.com) is 99 percent '50s-inspired menswear made by local designer Cindy Cho, but there's always a few little button-down shirts for the two-and-under set. Fabrics range from Hawaiian prints to sleek and super-spy glossy black ($29.50).

Finally, while Kid Robot (1512 Haight, SF. 415-487-9000, www.kidrobot.com) is not the ideal place to take sensitive children (unless you're prepared to explain/gloss over some of the spookier toys), it is a fine place to buy affordable, distinctive, and seriously weird presents. Even if you must deny your friend's offspring the $125 Twiggy doll, tricked out in a foxily androgynous gray suit and full-length fur coat, you can still cheer him or her up with a plush Panda-2 Robonimal ($5.95-$25.95) or a Gloomy Bear ($11.90).