No Strolls Barred

Let’s talk about car seat/stroller units for a moment.

About 6 months ago, Derek and I were systematically destroying stress-testing strollers in Babies-R-Us.  We’d come to the end of the line of their floor models, and had just about decided on the Britax B-Agile.

And then, a strange Italian woman mysteriously appeared from behind the high chairs and clucked at us.

You shopping for stroller?
“Uh…yeah.  I think we found the one though.”
No.  You want zis one.  Trust me.
“Not the Britax?”
No.  No Britax.” (She spat the word out like it was venom.)  “You get zis one.  Believe.

And then she pointed at the Graco Aire3.


gracoaire
This little guy right here.

Zat one is it.  Believe.

And then, as quickly as she’d come into our lives, she stepped down the playpen aisle and disappeared.

She was right though.  This thing is fantastic.

The carrier, as pictured in my last post, is nice and snug.  And Daphne averages 120 seconds in it before she falls fast asleep.   My only issues with it are that the newborn head pads never really fit properly and that it’s a bit on the heavy side.  Oh, and that it has all kinds of silk-screened warnings all over the fabric, but that’s just our bureaucracy hard at work reminding us all of how dangerous the world we live in is.

The locking mechanism on this thing is a wonder of modern engineering.  It chomps down on both the car seat base and the stroller with the tenacity of an anabolically-enhanced alligator.  It also boasts an oversized unlock latch, which makes removing it from the back of the Juke a breeze, even if I can’t see the huge red latch.

The stroller itself functions just fine.  Though to be entirely honest I haven’t pushed Daphne very far in it yet.  (I’ve been handling the dogs on our morning walks.)  But if there were a problem with it I’m sure I would’ve heard about it by now.  I can say that the cup holders seem a bit shallow for the average travel coffee mug, but they function well enough.  The storage bin at the bottom is a bit small too, but these are sacrifices that must be made at the altar of convenience.

Speaking of which, folding the thing up is about as easy as it gets.  There’s one red strap in the center that, if you lift upward on it, causes the entire thing to implode into an easy to lift parcel.  It’s one of those things that must be seen to be believed, so if you’re in the market for a stroller definitely test that part.  Hell, even if you aren’t in the market for a stroller and you find yourself simply passing by a Babies-R-Us it’s worth it to duck in and try this thing…  Amazing.

And finally, the best part?  Ours is the Aero3 ZEUS model.

Zeus-No-Holds-BarredI PUSH BABY!

And yes, I whisper “Zeuuuuuuussssss” every time we prep it for a walk.

j.s.

Zeuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssss….

One Comment on “No Strolls Barred

  1. Pingback: Sojourns |

Leave a Reply