WHY ONE BUGGY IS NEVER ENOUGH
So you're pregnant for the first time and amongst many of the decisions you have to make, the buggy decision is probably one of the biggest. And the most fun. I mean, show me a mama-to-be who doesn't spend most of her time googling buggies, asking friends with kids for their advice, assessing every buggy they walk past in the street. Oh yes, us mamas love us a good buggy. Of course, in our naivety as first time parents, we assume it's a decision we'll make once. Buying your buggy feels a bit like buying your family home: yes, it's expensive but it offers you everything you could possibly need for the rest of your procreating life, you truly love it and you're going to use it every damn day...so why shouldn't you splash a bit of cash on it?
Well, as someone who's just hoofed out their second Small, I can tell you that this way of thinking is wrong on all counts. You will never, ever just own one buggy. It's a fact of life. For some reason that I'm yet to fully understand, it doesn't matter how much research you do, you'll always come across a situation that requires you to buy another buggy. And another. And, probably, another.
Having begun our journey as parents with the Bugaboo Cameleon 3, I'll admit I was swayed by the street-cred of Bugaboo. All was fine until it came to hopping on an Easyjet flight to the Costa Blanca for a quick break. Let me tell you, those low cost airlines don't give much of a fudge about whether your buggy is the coolest one in town. If it's big and bulky, it's expensive to haul around so, what did we do? We bought another buggy.
A Mclaren Vista, or Vibe or Vulva (I can't even remember) was the next buggy to enter our lives. Great for travelling; great for keeping in the car. Then, we fell pregnant again. Neither of our buggies catered for two children. We obviously hadn't fully thought this through. What to do? It was bye-bye Bugaboo, hello second hand double buggy of some description or another. We didn't love the new one but we'd long since seen through the unrealistic love affair parents experience with their first time buggy purchase...if it didn't collapse and held two children then it was fine.
But then, THEN, iCandy got in touch and suggested we try their Peach Blossom double buggy travel system. I was almost at my buggy limit. I almost, almost, couldn't face investigating the pros and cons of yet another new buggy but, as I'm not one to look a gift horse in their buggy-carrying mouth, I readily accepted their kind offer. My husband was initially chuffed that iCandy wanted to send us a buggy ('So, you're blog is finally doing something eh?") and then dismayed at the thought of introducing a fourth buggy into our family life....so back to eBay/Gumtree we went and sold the unloved double buggy (at a loss, obviously).
By the time the iCandy Peach Blossom arrived we were jaded, sceptical and sick of scooching around the various buggies we had in our lives. This was going to be the beginning of another love/hate relationship, right? Erm, wrong. When we first got it I was still pregnant so we only needed it as a single for our toddler and, unsurprisingly, it totally rose to the challenge. I mean, really, it would take a super shit buggy to not live up to the expectations of carting one toddler around so while it was great, we weren't convinced. Yet.
Since then, we've bashed the hell out of this buggy. We've used it as a single for the toddler with a seat, a single for the baby with the bassinet and a double for them both. Converting between the options is easy enough for my toddler to do...yup, really. Yes it's heavier than a Sherman tank when carting around two children but that's because I'm carting around two children and because it's so easy to push the weight is only a problem when you're trying to bounce it up 40 steps to the underground platform in South Harrow.
Credit: NOT SO SMUG NOW
Put it this way, my sister (who is 16 years away from the last buggy she pushed) declared that 'it handles like it's on rails' and my nanny felt the need to text me on her day off to specifically say that she loved the buggy and had forgotten to mention it earlier. I don't know about you but any buggy that warrants its own text message is probably a pretty impressive piece of machinery.
Of course, you'll still buy a million other buggies but the iCandy Peach Blossom is a pretty damn good place to start.
Credit for main image: Emily Gray Photography