Taking a test stroll

First, the facts, for anyone who might have been desperately googling to find out "Will a Peg Perego or Maclaren fit in a Beetle's trunk?" The answer: A Peg Perego Pliko P3 will not fit; a Peg Perego Aria WILL FIT in the Beetle's trunk! And, a Maclaren Quest and Volo (the only two Maclaren models I tried) will fit in a Beetle's trunk! Happy researching. :)

Now for the reporting:

In my my stroller rant, I ranted only from experience online in researching a new compact stroller. As I have come to see this afternoon, it's just as important to take your stroller for a test drive as a new car, because what looks great on paper isn't always the best when you hit the road!

I was almost about to order the Peg Perego Aria online, but I figured I'd better try it out just to make sure it really would fit in the trunk. We went to a very accomodating Babies "R" Us, where they let me put a bunch of expensive strollers in my car's trunk (with some collateral, of course). Here's what we tested, and what we found in the great Peg Perego Aria vs. Maclaren Quest stroller face-off!



Peg Perego Aria
Fits in the Beetle's trunk: yes!
With room to spare. It's short enough, but wide. At first I didn't think it would fit, but after tipping and turning it a few different ways, it easily had room. Whew!
Shade-providing canopy: yes!
In addition to fitting in the Beetle's trunk, the canopy is my favorite feature about this stroller. In fact, the awesome clamshell-folding canopy folds almost as far over as our larger Pliko P3, and that alone almost swayed me to buy this stroller immediately. It's simply the very best canopy I've seen for a compact stroller.

Reclining seat: yes!
Plus a bar across the seat, which Baby H likes to hold onto on his P3.

But now, the part that made me glad for a test drive...

Handling and feel: eh!
Compared to the vast majority of strollers out there, the Aria steers beautifully. BUT...the handles are a little too low for my 6'2" husband. The Aria's downfall for both of us: it feels cheap, and despite being sort of clunky, it doesn't feel substantial to us. Plus, even though it folds up lengthwise to fit in the Beetle's trunk, it's still a very bulky package. Even with the one-handed opening (a cool feature), I don't see being able to fold it up and pop onto the Disneyland parking lot tram in this in a hurry. And for a stroller, that's a real consideration!



Maclaren Quest
Fits in the Beetle's trunk: yes!
I don't quite understand the magic that happened here, because according to the online measurements I found, it shouldn't have worked. But it did. The neat thing about the Maclaren is that it sort of folds in half. The result: a stroller that not only fits in the Beetle's trunk, but leaves room for a couple bags of groceries, too! It's actually a bit longer than the Aria, but it's much less bulky because of the wheel placement, so I feel it's easier to handle, too.

Shade-providing canopy: eh!
This is the only feature that disappoints me, and it was originally SO important to me. There is a canopy, but it's pretty lame. I made the one in the store go forward, but I'm not sure it's supposed to do that! (Sorry, BRU.) I do not understand why such a well-designed stroller has a basically useless (unless the sun is directly overhead) canopy. Is it because England (where Maclaren is made) isn't as sunny as Italy (home of Peg Perego)? Perhaps. This is the sole feature that still leaves the Italian Peg Perego in contention. Maybe it's better to stick with a Medieterranean climate manufacturer where sun is concerned?

Reclining seat: yes!
Nice seat, but no lap bar. However, I like that the harness straps are actually poking through the seat; the Aria (and the Pliko P3)'s harness drives me nuts because it doesn't really attach to the seat; there's a teeny little hook it rests against, and that lasts about 30 seconds with Baby H craning to look around.

Handling and feel yes!
OK, so that's not really a yes-or-no kind of bullet point, but I swear I thought, "Yes!" when I set off for the test stroll. I like the angled handles (like my P3, but unlike the Aria's straight-bar, grocery-cart style handlebar), and they're mere inches higher than the Aria, but that's high enough for Brad to be more comfortable pushing it. Plus, even though it's a lightweight stroller, it feels substantial--the opposite of the Aria.

Brad's leaning toward the Maclaren, because of the height, the very sleek folding, and the fact that it can hold up to 55 lbs. while the Aria can only take up to 45 lbs. (Another curious fact, since the Aria is clunkier.) Plus, he wouldn't admit it, but I think the slicker look of the Maclaren swayed his vote, too.

I'm not decided just yet. I'm hoping that overnight, someone will invent a perfect blend of the Aria and the Quest, and give it to me and Baby H to take out for a test stroll.

Trying on your car

So, as some of you know, Brad was in a car accident in our 2007Prius a couple of months ago. The old Prius really took one for the team, as they say, and is no longer with us, but thank God, the universe, the airbags, total luck, and anything else that played a role, Brad came out of the accident perfectly fine. The Prius was a mess, but it did its job, and we had no hesitation to buy another one, exactly the same (only in a slightly different shade of blue). And, it's definitely fun to have a brand-new car!

2008 Prius in Spectra Blue Mica (our color, Toyota's picture. That's not us hopping out of the car at a chic hotel--if it were, we'd be lugging around a lot more stuff! LOL)

Actually, since Brad hasn't been able to drive, he hasn't even gotten to drive the new car (which is no fun for him!).

(Let me take this opportunity to give a public-service announcement about voluntarilly waiting a few minutes after receiving a new vaccine for the first time to make sure your body responds well to it!)

Brad will be able to drive again in a couple of weeks, but so far, I've been the only driver of the new car, and the Beetle's been mostly sitting in the garage. Although I'm a fan of saving gas, and the Prius's four doors certainly make it easier to hoist Henry around, I have to say that I'm looking forward to mostly driving the Beetle again.

The Beetle is a good fit for me--and I don't just mean in looks or "personality." I mean in the way I sit in the car, it is vastly more comfortable for me than the Prius.

I love the Prius. It's a testament to how much I love it that, knowing that the driver's seat is uncomfortable for me, we still got another one! (OK, so it's intended to be Brad's car, so my driving comfort didn't really matter that much. It's just an odd circumstance that I happen to be driving it exclusively right now.)

But that darn seat makes my shoulders and back hurt and my arms tingle if I drive it more than a couple of hours a day. (And, alas, in traffic and if I'm dropping off Brad and picking him up, that could be over 3 hours of driving!) And the crazy thing is that, at least on the 2007 and 2008 models, I cannot figure out how to really adjust the seat or the wheel satisfactorally. The rental car we had for a while had fancy automatic tilt adjustments and everything--it was awesome. The Prius, for all of its futuristic features, has a seat that's stuck in the Stone Age. I really hope they change that in the 2010 model.

Fred's car has more seat adjustments than our Prius offers (by the way, I found this photo at a funny account of driving a Smart Car).

The weird thing about the seat is that it's not something I would ever have noticed on a test drive, because it only bothers me when I've been driving for a long time. The passenger seat, by the way, is totally comfortable. It's something about the position of the seat, pedals, and steering wheel that's all wrong for me.

Anyway, my point in all of this is that whatever our next car might be, however far in the future, I'm going to try and rent the car and drive it for a week before buying it.

Fortunately, Henry doesn't seem to care what car he's riding in--he's happy to look out the window, play with toys, and usually fall asleep! I think that despite the seat issues and the accident, we're having pretty good automotive luck overall (knocking on my Ikea wood desk). Getting from A to B safely, and even happily with a 5-month-old, is good enough for me.

Test-driving the delivery

OK, so it's probably not possible to really take a practice spin on labor and delivery. But Brad and I did recently take two hospitals' maternity area tours, and I am definitely glad for those "practice laps" around two of our local hospitals. The interesting thing is that the hospitals are both from the same health group (rhymes with "Butter"), but the experience at each was so different.

Of course, in an emergency, any hospital is a good hospital. I have gone to what I now know is not my preferred hospital in the middle of the night, received excellent care there, and been reassured by the friendly, competent nurses that all was well. Emergencies are a separate thing altogether.

But, hopefully, labor will progress in a relatively calm state, and I will be glad of having a choice of which hospital to go to. I am so glad to live within driving distance of the hospital in Davis, with its birth center, because I greatly preferred that one to the one in Sacramento.

The Sacramento hospital--although it's the hospital my current OB works out of, and which contains very knowledgable, pleasant nurses that I've encountered--was also just about the complete opposite of the Davis one. And not in a way that was the right fit for what we were looking for.

I'll give a small example of this: Today was the first over-100-degree day of the year in Sacramento, but not nearly the last. Unfortunately, it was uncomfortably warm at the Sacramento hospital--inside. As in, no air-conditioning warm. Inside the hospital! I asked about the temperature controls for the labor and delivery rooms, and was told enthusiastically that every room had a fan (we're talking a 12" tabletop fan here) and ice chips available. I'm all for natural birth, but this was pushing it.

I realize that temperature isn't everything. Maybe in labor, you couldn't care less what the room's like and you're totally inwardly focused. Really, I suppose you just need a place where you feel cared for and safe.

But, come on! A fan and ice chips is the extent of comfort that a major medical center in the state capitol can offer birthing women? (And the partners, labor support people, and medical personnel who care for them?)

Although I will miss my OB, I feel so much more comfortable in the Davis center (temperature-wise, but also, more importantly, in a general outlook on giving birth). I will gladly be driving farther to my new healthcare team in Davis.

Even though it won't be as convenient for going to work and my check-ups in the same day, I'll take a place where I feel comfortable, albeit with a longer drive, any day.

Test-driving the hospitals made the choice incredibly easy. But what I kept wondering as our tour group shuffled around the different hospital floors tonight was this: Why weren't the other women and men "kicking the tires" a little bit while they were taking their own tours?

Nobody asked any questions! My temperature question was the only one asked, and even that was a frivolous question compared to my greater questions, which I would have asked about if Brad and I weren't so sure within three minutes of the tour's start that this wasn't the place for us, and that I was hot and wanted to get out of there. Maybe everyone else on the tour felt the same way. But I suspect not everyone had ruled out the place.

I understand being shy and all, but it seemed the other ladies (and men) were way too content to just accept the conditions of the hospital, with absolutely no questions asked. Anyone buying a car would ask more questions and demand more answers from the salesperson! We're not talking about mileage and free floormats here--it's a huge, life-changing milestone in life that may or may not involve some major surgery. (And, not to keep focusing on the comparatively minor detail of the climate, but I seriously doubt anyone would even get a new car now that didn't come equipped with an a/c!)

Now, maybe I'm pushing the whole "car/driving" metaphor here. But maybe not: What did we spend proportionately the most time discussing? The fact that the hospital's hourly parking rate had gone up, and detailed instructions on where to find said parking lot. Not about the hospital's general approach to labor and delivery, or C-section rates, or episiotomies, or hospital policies. Nope, we barely even made a dent in anything of substance. I don't think that is the fault of the person leading the tour--she's the spokesmodel. Her job is to get you to like the place. The "consumers" here are the ones who need to be more involved and proactive in learning about what they're going to get.

Perhaps the other tourists liked that hospital. Maybe it was what they were looking for. Just because a place isn't the right fit for me doesn't mean it's not the perfect place for someone else. Or maybe there's an insurance limitation on where people can go, and it's their only option. But I would still have hoped to hear some questions from the test-drivers about what they can expect on the road ahead.

We left the tour, glad to live so close to Davis, and so close to a hospital with a birth center as its inspiration. It's worth the drive for me. And it was well worth the test-drive to know that for sure.