Taking a Stroll at MoMA

For those of you who immediately honed in on the image to the right and wondered, "OMG, is Shari not telling us something??", the answer is NO -- I'm not in any remote position to even consider actually having a stroller in my possession. Ok, now that we have that cleared up, I will tell you how the picture of this particular stroller came to be on my blog.

While making the rounds with everyone in New York, I made plans to see Nick, Reny and wee Ryan on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, Reny was stuck at the office and so Nick and I decided to bundle up wee Ryan (who isn't so wee now that he's verging on two full years of age!) and venture outside. Since it was only about 25 degrees out there, we headed for MoMA where we could walk around, but stay inside. (And for zero dollars since Nick's corporate deal got us all in for free. Score!)

Nick and Reny won an uber-space age stroller in a raffle when Reny was expecting and it's SUCH a design feat that the stroller is also on display in MoMA. That's right. It's actually on display. And numerous people in the museum pointed that out to me since I was the one pushing the stroller while Nick ran off in every direction after the wildly energetic nearly two-year-old Ryan.

And I guess this particular stroller (by Stokke) has such buzz in the parenting set these days that 3 different women stopped me with the opener "I know this is a really weird question to ask, but..." and then they would proceed to ask me how I liked the stroller. My answers ranged from the awkward, "Um, actually, it's not really... I'm not actually.... I don't really...." to "It's a great place to stash my purse and coat while walking around MoMA!" And before those women could give me a look just dripping with disdain, I quickly explained that I was the Auntie (the Auntie who saw the benefits of a high-end stroller as a simple storage device... no wonder I don't have kids!)

(As an aside, on our way to MoMA, Nick looked over as I mis-negotiated a curb and said, "Geez Shari, you look a little stiff with the stroller!" Well, I managed to fool a bunch of real moms in MoMA, so that's something!)

We chased Ryan around for about an hour and played many games (all involving running) and I have to admit that when it was time to leave, I was definitely breaking a sweat. And I was amazed at how hard it is to get a nearly two-year-old wrangled into his sweater, jacket, hat and mittens.

After that afternoon, it was MY turn for a nap.