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You might not believe it given the Baby Brezza Formula Machine mess and the television volume debacle, but Grandma Mary and I got another chance to watch our granddaughter Brooke for a couple of hours Saturday morning.
Brooke’s mom and dad were in the Jubilee Days parade in Hartford, South Dakota, Saturday morning, so they called and asked if we would take Brooke to the parade while they did their parade thing.
My guess is our invite to watch Brooke was considered once Brooke’s mom and dad realized there wouldn’t be any electronics involved in this short babysitting stint, so what could go wrong? I mean, really, all we had to do was drive a few blocks, get Brooke out of her car seat from the backseat of the car, put her into the stroller, walk over to curbside and enjoy the parade.
While this round of babysitting may have been free of electronic devices, we did have to deal with the car seat and the Super Hero Transformer Stroller.
Once again, apparently I wasn’t listening as well as I should have been when Brooke’s mom, Jenna, was giving us instructions on how to release the car seat from the back seat of the car.
Just so you know, the car seat issues pale in comparison with the Transformer Stroller.
After a few tugs and some choice words uttered under my breath, the car seat was freed from the car and now ready to place in the stroller.
You wouldn’t think unfolding the three-wheeled stroller to set it upright would be that difficult, but you would be wrong. Grandma Mary was off to the side holding Brooke in the car seat that doubles as the seat for the stroller, waiting for me to transform this tangled mess of metal with three wheels into a functioning stroller. I have to tell you my concentration was thrown off a bit when Grandma Mary started laughing.
First the Brezza mess, then the television volume, now this. To make things worse, we were out in public.
Between Mary laughing and me looking over my shoulder to see how many looky-loos were enjoying the show, I somehow managed to get the stroller upright.
So you think we’re ready to head to the parade now? Oh, no, don’t get ahead of yourselves — we still have to figure out how to mount the car seat/stroller seat to the stroller.
Poor Brooke was getting dizzy because we kept turning the seat back and forth trying to get it to snap into place. I was about to give up and just wrap a couple of bungee straps around Brooke, the seat, and the stroller to hold everything in place.
Safety police Grandma Mary didn’t approve of my MacGyver solution to the stroller problem so she stepped in, and in no time we had ourselves a working stroller.
We finally made it to the curb to enjoy the parade. When Brooke’s mom and dad drove by in the parade, we stood up, and Grandma Mary was holding Brooke, helping her wave at mom and dad.
All I could think of was — if they only knew