Some people in midlife, I hear, seek therapy through the purchase of a new red sports car. A few years ago, my husband met his need for red wheels with a cherry red Samsung Quiet Storm vacuum cleaner. For a long time he didn’t want me to touch it, a request he now regrets. For me, a red and cream Inglesina Zippy stroller arrived this week, sparking the best rush of retail excitement I’ve had in a long while. (Yep, even better than the Brita pitcher that broke our bottled water habit.)
Strollers have been on my mind for almost three years. We had two, not counting the simple metal foldup one from a friend and the ruggedly used, once-fancy hand-me-down from another friend. While our two strollers served us faithfully, and I’ll remember one of them particularly fondly, I always felt we just hadn’t found “the” perfect stroller. I kept any Bugaboo envy I may have had in check; they look good and have reversible handles — great for an infant — but who wants to pay $850 for a stroller, especially one that requires removing the seat from the frame to fold it?
Our first stroller, sitting at this moment by the dining table, is a Britax Preview that I purchased to go with a high-safety-rated Britax infant seat. It’s a workable, functioning stroller, although it doesn’t fold easily and doesn’t feel very light. You can’t push it easily with one hand, and yes, although pushing a stroller with one hand doesn’t sound very wise, moms do that.
Our main stroller was a $100 Combi that served our need for a lightweight, compact, easy-to-fold, stands-when-folded city stroller that I could carry up a flight of stairs. The Combi was the antithesis of the fancy stroller phenomenon — no cachet, no reversible handles, no all-terrain wheels, no coffee holder, with twisty, skinny straps. Nonetheless, I associate it with the little girl and me, with her infancy, with stroller naps, watching her sleep in it in the park while I read the paper and drank coffee, pushing her to the diner in it. I could push it with one hand, so the coffee holder wasn’t a necessity.
Well, the Combi broke last week. We were on our way to a playgroup, on a vacation day for me, and the foldable handle snapped. Maybe there was one curb or sidewalk bump too many. Maybe the little girl, while lean, surpassed the weight limit without my realizing it. Anyway, it broke, giving me the excuse I needed to buy a new stroller. A kind of fancy new stroller. When I told my daughter I’d buy her a new stroller, she looked up at me from the broken Combi and said, “a soft one, like (a playgroup mate’s).” Well, that guy rides in a kind of three-wheel SUV, and I told her we weren’t getting one of those, although I’d buy her a soft stroller. And then the question in my head: Has she been uncomfortable in that Combi the past year or two?
The little girl’s almost 3, so we could get by with the Britax. There’s that whole doesn’t-fold-easily obstacle, though, and well, hey, I’d discovered this Zippy. It folds very easily (with one hand, they say, although no stroller I’ve seen really does that). It stands on its own when folded. It’s nicely padded. The hood, unlike those on many strollers, pivots forward to truly keep the sun out of the passenger’s face. One little issue, though, is that a new Inglesina Zippy stroller retails for upwards of $300. How can one rationalize spending that kind of money on a stroller for an almost-3-year-old who prefers to walk, and run, a good deal of the time?
Ah ha! The wonders of eBay. I found a new, as in unused, 2006 model Zippy being sold by a bricks-and-mortar retailer who was trying to move old inventory. Perhaps some hyper-style-conscious parents care about this year’s stroller color. Not I. While it wasn’t as inexpensive as the Combi, the price was excellent. “We could just get another Combi,” I told my husband. “She deserves some luxury,” he said. Yes!
I told the little girl a new red stroller was coming. (I had let her choose the color.) “Where is it?” she asked. “It’s coming soon. It’s on a truck,” I told her. “It’s on a truck?”
It arrived yesterday. This stroller, my friends, is dreamy. It’s made in Italy, well designed, well assembled, parent friendly, comfy for the child. She’s excited about it, by the way, so she wants to ride in it. I pushed it up and down the hall, feeling a bit of what I assume is the excitement she feels when pushing her little dolly stroller there. It feels light, bouncy. It has a cup holder for the parent, a snack tray for the child, it assembled, literally, in snaps, no tools required. So many baby items seem as if they were designed by people downright hostile to parents trying to assemble and operate them.
Is it 100% perfect? No. It could use a pouch of some sort, the basket under the seat could be a bit more accessible. These are small concerns. Had I known about this stroller when I had a newborn and numerous people asking what we wanted for a gift, I would have suggested that a few of them chip in for a Zippy. It’s a pleasure to have it now. The little girl wants to show it to her friends, and showed another daycare mom today “my new red stroller,” explaining, “It came on a truck, it came a long way.”