Right On Right Start

As you may have noticed, I have been better about the fun baby shopping than the practical stuff. So, yesterday, Mr. Icing and I ventured out in search of a car seat and a stroller. We had a lot of questions, and wanted to practice using the products before making any decisions - after all, we are stuck with these choices for a long time. So, we decided to start at "The Right Start." It's a chain of baby stores (you can find them online too at http://www.rightstart.com/). They don't really carry furniture, and the stores are manageable in size. What they do have are really nice and helpful sales people. We had a lovely woman help us for about an hour as we tested car seats and strollers.

I had gone in very interested in the Bugaboo Bee. As it turns out, I could not fold the stroller on my own. That is no good, because I want to be able to do most baby stuff by myself! So, despite the bigger size, it looks like we are going with the Chameleon. It was so easy to insert the infant seat, or to switch out the bassinet/child seat. Mr. Icing surprised me by indicating that he wanted the pink option (it will have a grey bottom, but a pink hood) to make it easier for people to see. Don't worry - you can swap out the hood if you end up with a boy the next time around! The Quinny didn't work with the car seat I liked, and the Bob was really heavy. Do you know of any other brands to consider? Since we're ordering, we have time to change our minds...please advise! (Mr. Icing likes the Bugaboo the best, but I think he is swung by the looks...and the fact that it kind of looks like an SUV stroller :)

Ok. On to car seats. I went in intrigued by the Orbit (which is pasted way at the top, because I can't figure out how to move it down here!). It seemed really neat on the web, and it looked like it would be easy to move from the car to the stroller because it has a unique snapping base. HOWEVER, without a baby in it, I had a difficult time lifting it. It was heavy empty! And, it was sort of an awkward shape, so not really easy to carry with one hand! It gets points for being very cool, but when the seat is that heavy, it didn't make sense to me.

We ended up with the Graco Snugride. It got great safety reviews in the Baby Bargains book, and it was nice and light. Plus, it's really easy to install on top of the Chameleon, and to take off to put back in the car. So, in short, we got a lot done on the baby front yesterday!

We also met nice people in the store who piped up with their love of our choices - apparently if you live in Brentwood/Santa Monica, you buy the Bugaboo and LOVE it. I promise I'll do some non-baby posting later this long weekend, but this was the big event. Tomorrow, I'm heading over to Pottery Barn Kids to check out stuffed and slip covered gliders. Any thoughts on those?