Things I Tell My Wife by Matt Knutson

“I never thought I’d be excited about buying a stroller,” I said to Sera as we looked at review after review online. To be honest, they all started to blur together. It wasn’t until we started visiting stores that I discovered the importance of test driving a stroller. Some are enormous and some are tiny. Some come with carseats, some don’t even come with a place to put the child. The options, without guidance, were simply overwhelming.

I can’t help but marvel at how hard we work to prepare for something that at times seems completely unpreparable, especially as first-time parents. People have inquired about how we plan on doing things — breastfeeding or formula, natural birth or epidural — and as much as we have plans, I’m pretty realistic that no matter how much we prepare, things never go 100 percent the way you want them to go. As we shopped for a stroller, it frequently became about how we intended on using this piece of equipment that we’ve never used before. How do you plan for using something you’ve never used before? Will we need cupholders? Four of them? Is it important to have four wheels or three wheels? Will I really go jogging if I get a jogging stroller?

It took multiple trips to several stores before we decided on what we liked. Three wheels, easy to open and close, and adaptable to several positions were all on our list of desires. The research phase brought me to corners of the Internet that I never knew existed. Apparently there are people who solely review strollers as their career. I don’t know what kind of credentials they have, but I know they’re very passionate about their job. Maybe too passionate. There are people who travel all over the world for stroller conventions where new products are debuted. I suddenly found myself resisting the urge to subscribe to their YouTube channels, much like my current subscriptions to new technology reviews.

Eventually I found the perfect stroller and eagerly demonstrated how awesome it was to my wife. As we prepared to buy it, one last thought crossed our minds. Can Sera lift it? It turns out my dream weighed nearly 40 pounds — a bit too much for someone who had previous back problems and who will be a new mom to manage. Why would a business make such a nice product and have it weigh so much? I suddenly yearned for Apple to start making strollers, as it would notably be light weight and incredibly intuitive. They don’t appear to be in the baby game though, so we continued our search.

We eventually found a stroller that meets all of our needs while not bankrupting us, something I briefly feared, and an online Black Friday deal meant we spent a little less than I thought we would. A few days later it arrived, and I was able to assemble it in minutes. A few test drives around the kitchen, and I was sure we made the right purchase.

How did I go from not knowing how I’ll use this device to being so confident I purchased the one that will meet all of our baby transportation needs? Maybe it was the mom-blog reviews, the YouTube tutorials or even the in-store sales assistant who gave me the confidence I now have. I’m fairly certain I didn’t know a stroller could collapse before Sera and I started on this journey, and now I know that some strollers balance upright when collapsed, while others simply fall to the ground. Ours balances, in case you were wondering.

Purchasing a stroller is a lot like any big change you encounter in life. You prepare as best as you can, and at some point, you need to make a decision. Sometimes you have a while to research and sometimes you need to make a decision in a split second. Relying on the advice of people with experience is always a good idea. Just a day after we made our purchase, Sera was digging through my old baby photos to have one on display for her baby shower. We came across one of me in my stroller at a young age, and I quickly noticed the brand name of my stroller was the same as the one we just purchased for our daughter. While I didn’t consult my mom for her opinion of my childhood stroller, I’m sure she would have brought it up if she had a horrendous experience with it.

With a stroller in tow, we’re one step closer to being prepared for the unpreparable. I hope the rest of our journey before the baby arrives is as exciting as stroller-buying was.

 

Rochester resident Matt Knutson is the communications and events director for United Way of Olmsted County.