In my pre-mommy days, when temperatures plunged like they have in D.C. lately, I always wondered why moms would be so silly or stupid or selfish (or maybe a combination of all three) to bother taking their babies out in the stroller, making them endure the below-freezing temps. I mean, why wouldn’t they just stay home where it’s nice and warm and not bother trying to wedge the kid into a snowsuit?
Not only that, but weather shields–you know, those cheap plastic covers that slide over the whole stroller–were soooo tacky.
Now that I’m actually a mom, my perspective has done a 180. First, I don’t let weather stop me. If I’ve committed to doing something or being somewhere, we’re going–rain or shine, heatwave or snow flurries. (The obvious exceptions being a blizzard or tornado or something.) My reasoning is that for however inconvenient the weather is on the day I’m supposed to go somewhere, with my luck, it’ll be worse on the day that I try to reschedule.
Because we live in downtown D.C., going somewhere more often than not involves the stroller. Consequently, the tacky weather shield has been my best friend. It only took one morning of getting caught in a torrential downpour, where I had to wait in the Target lobby for 45 minutes for the rain to subside, to make me never forget it again.
In the winter, on 20-degree days like today, the challenge is to figure out how to keep baby warm when he’s prone to losing booties and blankets. So, I’ve been checking out other moms to see how they’ve tackled the challenge. Some go for the super puffy snowsuit, throw on a hat and maybe some boots and it’s all good to go. Others opt for what I like to call stroller sleeping bags, basically sacks that essentially fit around the stroller to insulate baby. But then, there are always the old school hold-outs, who live for this option:
That's one way to keep baby warm
I’m not sure exactly where I am in the spectrum. Baby started out the winter in a fleece one-piece snowsuit, but by the beginning of January it wouldn’t zip on him despite that it was sized for a 12-month-old. Then, I went for just dressing him only in fleece pants and sweatshirts and then throwing on his fleece jacket, a hat, and some booties and then covering him with a fleece blanket. But then the dog destroyed all the booties.
So, on frigid mornings like this one, about the best I can do is put as many clothes as I can on him, throw on an extra blanket, put down the weather shield, and walk really fast. Like this:
My bundled up bundle of boy
mum's the word 