First Comes Love...

Then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage, and then another one 17 months later and now you need a double stroller.

There was a time not so long ago when I disdained (and very possibly even mocked) the owners of double strollers. I mean, really, they are worse than motorized mobility scooters; they take up as much space and often contain crying babies. As with so many things in life, watch what you laugh at because you too may be laughable one day.

What I'm driving these days, the 2011 Baby Jogger City Select

While this new stroller felt conspicuous and ego-tastic for the first week, as with many aspects of motherhood, it soon came to be essential, and not long after that, taken for granted.

A Brooklyn neighbourhood proposed turning bike
lanes to stroller lanes; local moms were quoted saying the
lane wouldn't be wide enough for their double strollers. 

I could tell you that this is the best double stroller out there - if you don't mind the price tag - for many reasons. It has ample shade canopies (a surprisingly hard thing to find), serious storage space underneath, foam-filled tires (air-filled are prone to punctures), it accommodates multiple configurations (both kids facing forward, backward, facing each other, facing away from each other, et cetra), you can add on pieces like trays, rain covers, bassinets, et cetra, and it easily converts to a single stroller. All this to say that the real clincher for me was that it is not a double wide stroller. I just don't think I could handle bumping pedestrians off the sidewalk constantly. I mean, have you ever been on the receiving end of one of those bad boys? Proponents of the side by side strollers can be heard saying, "It's only as wide as a wheelchair!" as though it's a selling feature. But I've seen the dismay cross the face of oncoming walkers when they see the wide load of a double wide stroller and twenty sticky fingers rolling in their direction. 

After having my first baby I remember feeling as though I would never again be able to leave the house to go grocery shopping. Now I've grown so accustomed to my big stroller that I find myself wondering how I will ever grocery shop once the kids have outgrown it. Carrying shopping bags by hand? Or worse, driving to get groceries? Give me my 34 pound baby-mobile any day!