Pram I Am

When I was about six months pregnant, Justus and I started looking at prams. The prams we were interested in reflected our personalities - me, as a fashion follower with an overwhelming need to "fit in", wanting a Bugaboo, and Justus, who loves design and has VERY expensive tastes, on team Stokke. The prices of each are fairly comparable, but the Stokke is a bit more pricey and very design focused.

As he always does, Justus won the pram war and we bought a big expensive blue Stokke Xplory. The problem with buying prams when you're pregnant is that you really have no idea what you want or need out of a pram. You know what kind of person YOU are and what you enjoy doing, but there's no way of knowing what kind of baby you're going to have and what they're going to want from a pram. Also as a first time parent, you just generally have no idea about the logistics of getting out and about with a bub.

Before I launch into this, I have to say that there is so much I love about our Stokke. For one, Heike has always slept great in it and seems to find it comfortable. Now that she's bigger, she can sit up in it at the table and have a great view of the world. It's light to push, has a great turning circle and, let's face it, it looks snazzy. BUT... It's so big! And clunky! It takes up so much room in the boot, and so much time to take apart and put back together. It's fairly unstable on the rough pathways in the area where we live, and near impossible to get up and down stairs. In general, it's just a little bit too complicated.

Before I had Heike, I always thought fold out strollers looked kind of ugly. And uncomfortable. And hard to push. But in recent months, I've found myself looking longingly at mothers pushing around simple Maclaren strollers. Gradually my longing turned into obsession, which turned into nagging Justus in my favourite way, which is basically helpfully pointing out everything that annoys me about our current pram and pointing out benefits of the one I want instead. Fun for him! Anyway, last week victory was mine! He finally relented ("Just get it!!") and I trotted off to Baby Bunting to get myself a Maclaren. As much as I love Baby Bunting the lady there was kind of rude to me, not grasping my NEED for extendable handles (live a few days at 6 feet and get back to me) so I ended up heading to Toys R Us, where I picked up a Techno XT in a discontinued colour for $150 off. Which made the extendable handles a little more affordable.

So, what think I of my new Maclaren? I LOVE IT! It's soooo good. Light, easy to assemble, easy to push and plenty of storage. My reccomendation to new mums would be to borrow or buy a second hand pram that is more newborn friendly (the Techno XT meets newborn standards but personally I think it doesn't look as nice for sleepy newborns, and I loved having Heike facing me as a teeny bubba) and then at four, five months, get a stroller! They rock!! Heike loves it too, as you can see...

Z x