Quest for the One Stroller ⇒

One stroller to rule them all One stroller to jog them One stroller to hold them both and through the city walk them.

I have been a mom for three years. I have two children. In this time I have purchased 5 strollers and accompanying accessories. Each stroller was carefully researched and selected so that I thought it would be the one and only and the last. I have spent over $1100 on strollers alone, another probably $400 on accessories. To be fair, I did sell one of the strollers for $350 to a friend. Anyone who doesn't have kids will wonder how this is possible. Anyone with kids has probably done the same.

As kids and families grow and change, so do the stroller and accessory needs. Each stroller comes with its own accessory requirements to make it work.

Our first stroller (and still my favourite) was the Valco Runabout. We bought it to be our ONE stroller. We bought it because you could buy a toddler seat for it so when we had our second child around 3 years later, we could keep the same stroller. A brilliant scheme don't you think? At that time we bought a cup holder for it and a diaper bag that conveniently attached to the handle of the Valco. Alas, Elise didn't really liked the stroller much at first but she did get used to it after a while. Then we went to France and the Valco, we realized, would be too big for this trip so we bought a light weight stroller a step or two up from an umbrella stroller. Apart from the trip, we haven't used it much.

Then our three years between kids plan went awry and Daniella came when Elise was 19 months old. Elise was a bit too small for the toddler seat that came with the Valco. Too small and she liked to lay back and relax so I sadly sold the Valco and bought the Phil and Ted's with the toddler seat. The Phil and Ted's has many flaws but for two kids it worked quite well until Daniella had an opinion and wanted to see. It required buying a rain cover, UV cover, cup holder caddy and two saddle bags to work for me.

Now neither kid wants to sit in the back (which was one reason I didn't want the P&Ts;in the first place) so it's a struggle to go anywhere with it. They don't want to walk, but they don't want to ride in the back. For a while we coped with Daniella sitting on the hood but she is getting a bit heavy for it and I was probably on borrowed time with regards to her safety (Phil and Ted's would probably have a cow if they saw her!).

I set about to get a side-by-side umbrella stroller second hand which are apparently hard to come by but the lady who owns the consignment store I frequent told me you can buy clamps to put two umbrella strollers together. This solution means that I can take one or both umbrellas depending what I need at the time so for the small amount of time remaining that Elise will go in a stroller, it will be fine and then I can sell one of the umbrellas without having to buy yet another single umbrella stroller to accommodate D for however long she needs one. Of course, I had to buy a rain cover to go over the two because none of the rain covers I already owned were going to work. sigh.

I feel like the number of strollers I have bought is excessive but I have to admit that even the most frugal person I know (my sister) has two and she only has one child so I needn't feel TOO bad I suppose.

The question is: is this IT for my contributions to the stroller industry? Ask me again in another year.