Three Peerys in a Pod: Our new ride

I finally broke down and joined the local Mom of Multiples (MoM) club...with an ulterior motive. I wanted access to the MoM Fall Consignment Sale! See, there was this stroller....

Let me back up. Strollers were one of the things that I was most worried about from a "gear" perspective. Even before the boys were born, I was reaching out to fellow triplet moms to get advice and suggestions. I just didn't know what stroller was going to work for triplets. A few things to think about...whether you want the seats to go front to back (this makes it very hard to steer and the baby in the front is wayyyyyy in front of you) or side to side (this is hard because it's usually too wide for doors and aisles). Every mom that I asked had gone through several strollers in different configurations and had different advice for me. I just felt lost on the whole thing. My decision with the strollers ended up being "don't make a decision - use what we have until it becomes very apparent that it's not working and then decide how to move forward". Ha :) Good ole' skirting the hard decision. It's worked so far.

We have several strollers to our name. We started out with a double and a single Snap N Go. That's the kind that is basically a frame that folds and unfolds easily and you snap your infant car seat into it. It was perfect for little trips to the doctor and other appointments. The wheels were very small though so it was not so great for long walks around the neighborhood. It just wasn't very rugged. If I went somewhere with Thomas or another person, we used both strollers and if I went somewhere by myself, I used the double Snap N Go and my Ergo carrier for the 3rd baby. We soon outgrew the Snap N Go strollers. Then, one day while I was looking through the garage, I found a double City Jogger stroller. We had gotten it as a hand me down from a sweet twin mom that we know and I had totally forgotten that we had it! It's a perfect stroller - it folds up so nice and neat, is easy to work, had great wheels for walking/jogging (not that I do any jogging at all!), easy to steer, etc. So once I discovered that gem, I began using it along with the Ergo carrier for the 3rd. Then shortly after that, my sister-in-law, Ashley, donated her old single jogging stroller to us, so we then had a good double and a good single stroller for when we went anywhere as a family. Around the same time, we got an offer for a triple stroller hand me down from a generous family in Charlotte that we'd never even met! They saw a picture of a mutual friend with our boys and offered us the stroller through our friend - how awesome is that?!?! We did not hesitate to accept it! I was so excited about finally having a triple stroller that I could put them all in! I knew it wouldn't be the perfect fit for us for a few reasons, but was so touched and grateful to get it. A few of the pros of this stroller were that the seats detach from the frame and are washable and heck, it's a triple stroller. The cons were that the brakes are only handbrakes, so you can't put the brake on while you're putting them into it, which is more difficult than it sounds, because the stroller moves back and forth while you're trying to put them in and get them buckled and you're all bent over and usually it's hot...blah, blah, blah. You get the point. Also, its three seats go across, so you can't get it through doorways. Which actually isn't an issue because it also doesn't fold up without taking the whole thing apart, so you can't really load it up into the car and run some errands...which is OK because if you did go to that trouble to load it up, you'd quickly realize that you couldn't actually get into the store where you're trying to go and couldn't go through the aisles. Also, the front wheels don't swivel so it makes turning or going around a curve difficult. This stroller ended up being our walk around the neighborhood stroller and it was perfect for that purpose! Can you begin to see how complicated the stroller issue is for triplets?

The whole time I've been trying to keep my finger on the pulse in my triplet mom group on Facebook to see what they think about strollers and what has worked/is working for them. The resounding favorite of these moms is the Valco Tri-Mode double stroller with the Joey seat addition. It hits all the right marks - it folds easily, it fit through doors, it's sturdy enough for jogging, it's just awesome. The problem? The price! I have a hard time spending a small fortune on anything. I kept my eyes and ears open for any used Valcos that I could get my hands on. But these guys don't stay on the market long. There must be a big group of people stalking used Valco strollers online. Anyway, I just kept putting off buying one with the hopes of finding a used one if possible. I came to terms with the fact that I may just have to buy a new one if and when we got to that point where what we had was no longer working.

So back to present time. Ryan's Occupational Therapist, Emily, is a twin mom and a member of the MoM group. She mentioned the consignment sale to me and asked if I was considering going. I am not a huge shopper. Going through rows and rows of used clothes is not really my thing. My spare time is precious, people! I told her I probably wasn't going. She then asked if there was anything specific that I might want or need. I told her to keep her eyes peeled for a used Valco double stroller and to let me know if she saw one. I figured if I could get stroller used, I could fork over the money for a new Joey seat. She took it a step further and asked members of the group if anyone was planning on selling one. Guess what!!!! As luck would have it, a MoM member was planning on selling a triple stroller, and not just any triple stroller...it was a Valco double stroller with Joey seat! I got prepared to stalk.

Members of the MoM group can shop on Friday night of the sale and then it's open to the public on Saturday. I proceeded to get there EARLY (I might add) on Friday to get in line to become a member, pay my dues and get the stroller. I didn't want to take any chances of it being swiped up from under me. I succeeded. YES!!!! It was still pretty expensive for a used stroller, but much better than full price of a new one. Plus, we had a big gift card from some special people that we got at one of our baby showers and we've been holding on to for this specific reason.

It looks like it's in really good condition, considering it's used, and all the parts and pieces were there. I had another triplet mom that bought a new Valco look at it at the sale for me to make sure it looked alright. I got a quick tutorial on how to use it (i.e. how it folds, how the Joey seat connects and disconnects and so forth) from the seller, loaded that baby in the minivan and was on my way. Oh yes, I did pick up a few clothing items for the boys as well. Of course, I wasn't well organized to know of anything specific they needed, but just looked through and found a few cute things they can wear this fall. Pat on the back for me, with the exception of not going with an organized list. Oh well.

So our new stroller is actually an older model of a Valco called a Runabout Twin stroller, but it did come with the Joey seat. I was so excited when we got it that I did a full out stroller cleaning. It already seemed pretty clean, but I got out the vacuum attachment and vacuumed it, hosed it down, used mild detergent on all the canvas areas, even took a brush to the plastic parts. I was on a stroller cleaning roll. I put that puppy out to dry and it looks as good as new (almost!!). We've taken it on a few rides so far. The boys seemed to like it and I'm so glad to have a portable stroller that will hold all 3 of them! This stroller should last us through the end of the stroller phase.

Triplet mamas out there that might be reading this: I am making your job easy. Do not bother with any research. Do yourself a favor and get a Valco double with Joey....used, if you can! ;)

This is how we roll.