Footloose and stroller free!

On a recent trip to the mall with Little Man, we were chugging along, popping in and out of stores hitting the carousel and the play area, avoiding the Cinnabon - because, really, is there a more perfect representation of what is wrong with this country than eating four pounds of dough and icing while shopping? - when I realized I was sweating as hard as if I were on a run.  Was I having a hot flash?  Was this early onset menopause?  Then I realized I was wearing a down parka as well as carrying three shopping bags and my purse.  In other words, I realized this was my first winter without a stroller.

Like most major changes in the world of parenthood, this milestone crept up on me unnoticed, yet when I finally did realize, it was a jaw-dropping discovery.  As the mother of more than one child, your stroller is like an extra appendage, and quite often the only way you are moving, from point A to point B, the mass of humanity entrusted to your care and the roughly one hundred pounds of gear required to feed, clean and soothe them.  Unable to part with any of our strollers since every time I gave birth I was knocked back to square one like the stroller version of the game Sorry!, our garage, for many years, looked like the stoller department of BuyBuyBaby*.  Looking at all of them was like looking at a wheeled timeline of my life.

The first in the line-up was the Snap 'n Go.  This stroller, which is essentially only a frame, had a short lifespan, but was vital to our survival when we were living in a fourth floor walk-up with no garage.  The Snap 'n Go perfectly reflects life with one child.  Convenient, lightweight, it barely slows you down**.  I had two giant diaper bag hooks on my SnG since I had to pack the entire contents of the nursery to walk down the street to get milk at the Korean grocery or surely my baby would die. I see women now with small, battery powered fans attached to their SnG's to keep their babies cool.  What a great idea.  Had they been invented at the time, I would have used mine to cool myself of during attacks of panic sweat when I realized my baby needed to nurse in public.

Once I realized the benefits of not having to unbuckle my baby to take her out of the car were no longer outweighing the horror of my one, over-developed bicep, we moved on to the single upright stroller.  This stroller is like your first new car; you want all the bells and whistles like the toy bar with interchangeable pieces and the attachable snack cup - for your child, not you, but that feature would be convenient since this around the time mothers begin sustaining themselves on foods that can only be eaten by the handful while standing- sadly, no flame magnets.  The single stroller is also your first experience with how seriously a child can destroy a moving vehicle.  Once pristine, after my third child, my single was covered in unidentifiable stains and Cheerio dust was embedded in every seam. The snack tray still sticky with what I think was once juice.  I think.  It's really good practice for accepting what your car will eventually look like.

Next came The Behemoth.  The double stroller.  Pictured below with two infant seats, the double they made back in my day was the size of the QE2, with roughly the same maneuverability.

Look at what they have today:

I bet you can actually get this thing through the aisles of a Bed Bath and Beyond without taking out a display of Snuggies!  And it folds up with the flip of a a lever.  The QE2 required a degree in engineering to collapse, so rather than look like Snoopy trying to set up the ping pong table in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, most times I just put down the seats in the back of the van and loaded it as-is.  That did wonders for my back.

As soon as I could get rid of the infant carrier, I bought a double jogging stroller for the two girls.  Let's call it a "jogging" stroller since I didn't even run with it.  I tried, but I have never been one to be able to zone out while running with my kids, or rather, my kids would not let me.  I couldn't run with any music, since, approximately every three minutes, my children had to either point out some mundane object we were passing, or request, water, a snack, and for the canopy to be adjusted.  I also couldn't get the stride right.  I always wound up leaning on the handrail kicking my legs out behind me like I was on the wall in a water aerobics class.  I love that the stroller came with a handbrake and a tether to attach to your wrist.  What post-partum Flo Jo is running that fast?  Regardless of its impracticality for fitness, the large wheels did make it less annoying to go for walks in the neighborhood, and in later years, for traversing the rough terrain of the soccer field.

I pingponged back and forth among these strollers as the girls grew and Little Man came on the scene.  My oldest was ejected entirely from any kind of Mommy-assisted transport at the tender age of five.  Poor thing, she was young in the days before all of these ride-along contraptions.  Like this one with not one, but TWO platforms for older siblings.

I'm sorry, but if you are old enough to cut your own food, you can use the legs God gave you.

Then it came time to purchase the last vehicle in my fleet.  The stroller that gets you across the border from Toddlerland to Kidville.  The umbrella stroller.  These things can be called strollers only in the academic sense.  They have wheels and they can carry a child, but not much else.  Umbrella strollers fold up like their namesake, are made with the same thin fabric and weigh about as much.  The seatbelt is a strap with the flimsiest of buckles, there is not storage compartment of bar to attach and geegaws, and the tiny rubber wheels barely pivot.  The US is for the day you can finally stick a granola bar, a Ziploc with three wipes and a Hot Wheels car in your purse*** and be fully prepared for the day.  If the double stroller is the stroller equivalent of crawling, then the umbrella stroller is sprinting.  This is the stroller you use when you and the rest of your kids need to tear through the airport to get to Disney World and your last child can't keep up.

Now my garage is free of any Mommy-powered wheeled vehicles.  Am I sad?  A little.  Especially now that they sell snappy strollers like this one that are not only cute, but don't force you to break your back.  And why did it take so long for the stroller Gods to realize stopping to check on your kid while walking is super-annoying and children were not going to be developmentally stunted if they were facing backwards?

I see the end of our strollers days as the beginning of our days as a family in full motion.  Even though strollers help you to be more mobile, they are actually a giant albatross around your neck in many scenarios (see: airplanes, subways, any building built before 1960).  I feel so unburdened never again having to fold and unfold, load and unload one of these apparatuses  or say, "Go ahead, I'll stay with the stroller."

Now where the hell do I put my coat?

*Another realization I made this year was that I have not set foot in a baby store in ages.  When I did go in to purchase a shower gift recently, it was like visiting your old college campus.  Everything looks vaguely familiar, but everyone seems so young and there have been so many changes you barely know your way around.
**Apologies my parent-of-one readers.  Let's talk after child #2.
**I noticed the diaper bag-to-purse milestone much earlier since it allowed my to re-enter the world of designer handbags.