I hadn't been out all weekend. At 12.30pm today I bundled eldest daughter and boy in the middle into Grandpa's car to go and see a couple of hours of seasonal pantomime and eat too many sweets typically allowed on an outing of this nature.
The snow had fallen very rapidly on Friday and Saturday but my dear husband and eldest two kids had been out yesterday and relayed that they had seen a number of strollers out and about. The sun was shining and baby A and baby E were screaming as they are cutting yet more teeth and so I wrapped them up in extra sweatshirts, snowsuits, blankets and a raincover to keep out the wind. In my mind I would assemble the stroller outside in the street and carry out each laughing happy baby in turn and strap them calmly into the stroller. In reality two screaming babies were headbutting the floor so I took baby E and popped in her pacifier. With one hand I opened the stroller in my hallway and I got baby E into her seat only needing to push her arching back down so I could strap her in. I then repeated this whole procedure with baby A.
I grabbed my baby bag, hat and coat and warmed up the leftover soup that was in the fridge which I could drink from the tupperware on my way. I then managed to get the stroller through the doorway into the snow. Cursing my husband for not having cleared the driveway I got the stroller down the two steps. I gave a push but there was no chance of it going forward through this much snow. I went round to the front and dragged the stroller out to where the road used to be and I tried to wedge the wheels between the tyre tracks.
I started off for the shops. The sun was still shining and the babies were still crying. The stroller couldn't go at its usual pace. I walked down the centre of the road with great difficulty. I stopped after a few minutes to have a slurp of the warm soup and considered turning back. This had to be my most ludicrous outing I have been on since the twins were born. However I am a very determined person and I still had to get two babies to sleep so I ploughed on. I reached the main road and found the snow on the pavements to be more compacted so the pushing was easier.
In years gone by I have loved watching the snow fall and heading out in my wellies to build a snowman with my kids. Never before have I really paid too much attention to the consistency of snow. Today however I veered towards the dark slushy unappealing stuff as the wheels turned through this with no problem. The white fluffy snow had to be avoided.
At times I found myself pushing the stroller through a snow consistency similar to sand. I would never dream of pushing a stroller along the beach so why on earth had I ventured out today? I did reach the shops and got my essential supplies of bread and baby wipes. I was amazed that the local shopping park was still full of snow and I couldn't get my stroller from the road up onto the pavement without the help of a kindly passer-by.
A normal trip to the shops and back can be done within an hour which gives me time to clear up the house while Baby A and Baby E sleep on in their stroller. Today it took me two hours and as we neared home they awoke and the crying began again.
As I am writing this I can see a few more flakes of snow falling. Clearly I won't be venturing out again for a while as my stroller obviously isn't designed for these conditions. On the plus side, Baby A and Baby E did have a great sleep in the fresh air and I had a great workout but I have just remembered that I must go and remove the plastic tupperware from the bottom of my baby bag and pour away the cold soup.
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