Stroller Madness

Of all the shopping decisions we had to make when I was pregnant, the one that most intimidated me was the stroller. In my mind, I'd always assumed that a stroller was a stroller was a stroller -- it has four wheels, you put your baby in it and you go.

Silly, silly me. Stroller shopping is very much like car shopping. Would you go and buy the first car you saw at the first dealership you happened by? Of course not, you stupid person. What if you ended up with a Chevrolet? So why would you do that to your child? What if you wound up buying him the Chrysler Sebring of strollers? You've got to do COMPARISON SHOPPING.

Of course, being eight months pregnant, sore and grouchy is not the best time to test drive a car, and so naturally it is not the best time to test drive a stroller, either. We walked into Kids Land, into a veritable sea of strollers, and you should have seen the looks on our faces. We just meandered up and down the aisles, silent and confused. There were jogging strollers. Umbrella strollers. Full-size strollers. Double strollers. Travel systems. Strollers with infant bassinets that converted to toddler seats. Orbits and Quinnys and Stokes and Bugaboos and Uppababys and Peg Peregos and Maclarens and... (Any new parent reading this journal entry is nodding sympathetically right now, I guarantee.) How were you supposed to know what to buy?

In the end, we wound up doing the easy thing: we bought a Graco Snugride carseat that converts into an infant stroller, and then accepted the stroller part of it secondhand from friends. This, my friends, is the Snap n Go:

Snap n Go

I call this the Honda Civic of strollers. It's classic. Easily recognizable. Affordable, but sturdy and well-reviewed. Very few frills, but you'll always have somewhere to stick your water bottle. And the trunk space is actually quite generous.

So this is what we've been using with Sadie up until now. And while it's been dependable, there are things you just don't do with the Snap n' Go, just as you wouldn't do them with a Honda Civic. You wouldn't go off-roading in your Civic, for example. And you maybe wouldn't take a long road trip in your Civic, because while your Civic is great for driving to the supermarket, it is not so good for 9-hour car rides when you want to stretch out your legs and take a nap.

And similarly, the Snap n' Go was limiting our baby-inclusive activities severely. A hike through Griffith Park turned embarrassing when the trail turned rough and we were suddenly spinning our tires up a steep incline. A simple walk down the sidewalk could turn into a sudden challenge if the sidewalk buckled. More than once, I hit a bump I thought I could simply push the stroller over, only to have it stop sharply and tip forward, sending me, the baby and the dogs all pitching forward comically.

And so finally, it became time to add a second stroller to our arsenal. A bigger one, with big fat wheels that can handle dips and holes and buckled sidewalks. And this time, we were better prepared. We'd seen the strollers our friends had, we'd figured out what we needed, and we knew our budget. In addition, we had a secret weapon: CRAIGSLIST. Once you  figure out that strollers are usually outgrown long before they physically wear out, it can often make more sense to buy a perfectly good stroller secondhand than to pay for a brand new one.

But of course, we still had to go back to Kids Land and test drive again and decide on a favorite stroller. While we were there, we spotted several pregnant couples with the exact same haunted looks on their faces as they wandered the aisles, clueless and overwhelmed. Oh guys, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

What we eventually ended up with, if you're curious, was a secondhand Baby Jogger City Elite that is, in a word, rad. We got it inside and looked at it and admired it and took the baby out for a test walk and she loved it because the canopy hides her face from the sun and the dogs love it because it's quiet and we love it, love it, love it.

Baby Jogger

Last night we lay in bed talking about the stroller. "I really like it," I said. "It's perfect for going for walks. And now we can walk to Farmers' Market on Sunday mornings, and hike up to the observatory."

"Yeah."

I paused. "The only thing it isn't good for is, like, shopping or meeting someone for coffee. Fitting into tight spaces. Because it's so big."

"Well...we should probably get an umbrella stroller for things like that."

"Yeah, probably. The Peg Peregos have that double handle you like."

"Well, I was thinking we'd probably go with a Maclaren..."

And it begins again.