You Should Have Heard The Hours of Deliberation Putting Together the Target and Babies R US Registries

It should come as no surprise that Kathy has gone hog wild, baby style. Sometimes I have to remind her to cool off but honestly, I wouldn't want to do this without her craziness. If I want to discuss the intricacies of baby socks for 40 minutes, she's my girl. Let's face it, none of you want to debate the pros and cons of 1 vs 2 Diaper Champs for an extended period of time. (You should have heard the hours of deliberation putting together the Target and Babies R Us registries). She may be a bit much at times but we love her anyway.   I bring this up because an event occurred in our lives that was so momentous it has changed all of us. We had to decide on, find, and get a triple stroller. You scoff and say, what an easy thing. YOU ARE WRONG. If I lived in say, Arizona, this would be pretty easy. I'd pick whatever was cheapest (BabyTrend in-line) and roll with it. Well, I don't live in Arizona, or anywhere normal for that matter. I live in the big apple and having triplets has become the worm in that apple. Don't get me wrong, I adore the city. I have been obsessed with it since I was a kid. I love the pace and the vivacity. I love that all types of people are all mixed together living, literally, right next door to each other. You could have a gorgeous multi-million dollar condo across the street from project housing (think Lincoln Square area). It's amazing but it is not made for people with a plethora of tiny children. But, I digress.

There are basically 2 types of triple strollers available in the US. An inline stroller where each kid is behind another (they are 'in line', get it?) and then side-by-side where the kids are, well, obviously, side-by-side horizontally. I know, the names are very dubious and difficult to decode. Well, here is the deal. In New York we have small doorways and small elevators. Side-by-sides do NOT fit through doorways and in-lines are too long for many elevators, including the subway elevators. Both Kathy and myself researched strollers for months. We sifted through hundreds of posts on triplet sites, craigslist ads, ebay, google shopping and even YouTube, trying to find a stroller that fit our needs. Finally, we found it. The ABC Adventure Buggy triple. The clouds began to part and angels began to sing. It has either two on the bottom and one on top or one on the bottom and two on top. Its as slim as a double and as short as a single, fitting through doorways and even into elevators. Now, it would be easy if this baby were available stateside. Of course it's not. It's sold in Australia and New Zealand. We went to the website and found out it would be about two grand. Yeah, two thousand smackeroos. Dos mil dolares. Clearly not happening. Well, for several weeks we checked craigslist and ebay religiously for a used one. Finally, I posted on tripletconnection to see if anyone was selling theirs and by the grace of little baby Jesus, a woman in Arizona was selling her used one. She lived in Queen Creek, most of which is about an hour from Kathy and Bradford. Kathy, more excited than even I, took it upon herself to go get this baby. No one can describe what transpired next but my padre. Here is the email he sent me. I had asked if mom was driving him batty yet with baby stuff. His reply is timeless.

"No, she isn't driving me batty, she drove me batty long ago so I'm just batty all the time. When your mom gets something into her head to do, it's hard to talk her out of it. And if I would have said we needed to wait till the weekend during the day (which I told her that) she would have gone out there alone, and she would have still been looking for this lady's house because she would have never found it. It was dark, there were no street lights, we couldn't read the signs, the google map was not very precise, some of the roads didn't go through which showed on the map, she pronounced all the street names wrong so I didn't know what she was talking about and I was getting frustrated to say the least. But, we found it, we got the stroller (it's like one of those big long cars the Nazi generals used to drive). It is a deluxe unit. Mom can't see over the top of it so she won't be much help pushing the cute babies around. I tried to get Timba to sit in it and I was going to push him around the living room but He didn't want anything to do with it.

On our way home we stopped by Safeway to get food and I needed to get gas in the truck. I let mom out in the front to go in and get the food and stuff and then I went and got gas. I parked close to the front door so she would see me when she walked out. As she was coming out of the store, I backed up and started going forward so she could come around to the side and get in. Well she ran over to the next line of parked cars (about 40 feet away) and then when I stopped she came over and got in. I asked her why she was clear over there and she says she didn't want me to run her over.

After we got home, I grabbed the top portion of the stroller from the back of the pickup and Mom insisted she would get the stroller out and also pull her car in the garage. Well she got everything in all right but then I noticed she was limping and holding her wrist. I asked her why she was limping and she said she fell out of the back of the pickup onto the street. She had black dirt and oil all up and down one side of her.

That Mom is a funny one but I still love her as I do you and Alicia (she just got done wrecking my truck).

It's a tough life living with goofy girls.

Love and Kisses,

Dad"

Literally, every single thing we make fun of Kathy for; not saying any words right, being clumsy, being too wound up and having to get something done immediately and so many more things were RIGHT THERE in one situation. I died laughing.

Eventually, the stroller got in the house and got set up and here is what that baby looks like:

The hazy figure in the back is either a. a ghost or b. Bradford. I'll let you decide.

For more information go to www.gobubbago.com.au. Their videos are awesome.

Update: Less than a month after we thought we got an amazing deal by buying this used, the manufacturers costs went down and a brand new one could be purchased for literally $100 more than what I paid for this one.  And, we learned that a major component of this stroller was broken and the whole thing could fall apart.  Thus, after spending $100 fixing that we paid the same price as a brand new one.  Why didn't I see that coming?  I should know by now.