A friend promised to give us a car seat a while ago, so we didn’t consider a travel system at all. We probably wouldn’t buy one anyway due to its bulkiness. If we were to buy our own car seat, we may go with a Britax Companion, and thus a Britax stroller.
Ever since we got to know the super expensive Bugaboo, I’ve been seeing it almost every day in downtown. Given the short distance between PATH station, my office, and my usual lunch place, and the lack of residential buildings in the area, it’s really quite amazing. Either Manhanttaners are all insanely rich, or nothing else works on Manhattan streets. The latter is much more plausible, since I wouldn’t be too surprised if an umbrella stroller breaks down in one street block, a light-weight one falls apart after two avenues, and a full-size Graco fails in three days. If you have to buy more than one stroller each week, the cost would exceed the Bugaboo very soon.
It’s fortunate that I exorcised the images of those cool high-end strollers, because we got a Graco SnugRide car seat (8465LRD2) from our friend, although Bugaboo does have a $50 car seat adapter for it. J’s boss recommended Kolcraft’s Universal Car Seat Carrier that she used, and we thought we could go directly to an umbrella stroller after the car seat is outgrown, keeping things light. It’s indeed a very light, sturdy, and agile frame, but SnugRide can’t be safely secured, even though Kolcraft’s website claims that it’s compatible.
Then it’s not too hard to pick a Graco light-weight stroller instead of Graco’s own frame or full-size. Buy Buy Baby happens to have the top MetroLite model (LXI 6125SMB) on sale, and hopefully it can survive a few years of Jersey malls.
UPDATE Valentina balloons to 20lbs @ 6 months, so we got a Fisher Price Safe Voyage convertible. It’s less than $150 and made by Britax–enough said.
The same friend who gave us the infant car seat also gave us a Eddie Bauer high-back booster seat, so we’re pretty much covered. Do we have great friends or what?
掌上明珠 
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