Stroller Derby

Our new pad is only a few blocks from the beach. Every Thursday there is a farmer’s market near the strand in the park, so we walked there for the first time with The Boy riding shotgun. Summer was bearing down on us so I shadowed The Boy below the stroller’s sun visor. I was amazed with how many families were running around in the park. There must have been 27.5 kids on the jungle-gym alone. The half was the one rolling around in the sand screaming from the pits of his bowels after he tumbled off the top of the large slide. Ouch. There were a lot of fathers chasing little tikes around also. Perhaps this will be my spot for meeting fellow fathers. As we neared the farmers, a beautiful flock of pelicans soared just overhead. I was admiring their gliding elegance just as Lilly screamed bloody-murder in my ear. Startled to death, I yelled back, “What happened, what is it?!”

“Get something!” her arms were outstretched towards the heavens as she screamed in terror and disgust.

“Something? What do you mean?” She shoved her bulging chest out before me to inspect. There were two splashes of pelican pooh, one above each breast. They must have been aiming for her. “There isn’t anything to get!” I shouted back.

“I don’t care what you find just get me something to wipe the shit off!” She was in a total frenzy, her arms still outstretched as if afraid she might set them in pelican droppings if she let them down. Having pooh on your chest qualifies as being as bad as stepping in a ripe deuce with your bare feet. She was entitled to yell all she wanted to, even in spite of a dozen nearby strangers staring us down.

I reached for The Boy’s blanket that he was snuggling within the stroller. “No, no you can’t use that!” She protested at me. I bent down to rummage through the diaper bag. I’m still not used to having a baby, so it hadn’t even occurred to me to grab the baby wipes. Hell last week I forgot there was a baby sleeping in the living room with us. I’m thankful my Tahoe is lifted with huge tires so its roof is out of my reach or I could be prone to leaving the car seat on the roof when I drive off. I unzipped the fancy diaper bag and pulled out a white burp cloth. As I handed it up to Lilly she yelled at me again, “No!” She couldn’t afford anymore breath than that because all the while she was hyperventilating. “Well, I don’t know what you want me to get, there’s nothing else, just use the cloth.”

“Get the damn wipes!”

“Oh yeah, baby wipes will work,” of course, I have baby wipes because I have a baby. “I can’t believe you got shat on. I was watching those birds fly overhead too. Didn’t even notice they were shatting on you though.” So I whipped out the wipes and wiped her…chest. First time I touched her chest since the baby took them over. Now this gets a guys mind to wander. Besides there being pelican crap on them, they sure are looking nice and perky. In fact they are bigger than I have ever seen them. They are big bulging beautiful specimens of womanly beauty. She may even have a nice perky D cup now. And that’s a nice sized upgrade from a firm 34B. So I was sidetracked from all her yelling from the bouncing boobs. That must be why I didn’t notice the large splash of pelican crap on my shoulder. By now it had already soaked right through the thick white buttoned cotton shirt. Lilly had pointed it out while we were giving her chest a baby wipes spit shine.

“Oh dude, where did that come from?” Now she started laughing. It was a catastrophe when she got hit, but now that I was also in the line of fire it was hysterical. So I swiped a couple more baby wipes and began my shoulder polish. Too late, the damage was done. This was no mere superficial wound. My shoulder had been desecrated. “Ya know, this is the first time I have ever been shat on. You might think now that we wipe The Boys shat up every day we wouldn’t be so terrified.”

“Yeah right, it’s different when you get shat on.” She exclaimed with gusto.

“Of course, it is.” I concurred.

After we wiped ourselves down and were now smelling like fresh scented baby wipes we did an inspection of the carriage and it’s precious passenger. Sure enough, there was shrapnel on the sun shield. The Boy would have taken the full hit if the shield wasn’t up. On further inspection I found a ripe pile on the arm rest as well. Three birds and three of us got hit. Either they were all aiming for us at once, or one of them had been holding it in all morning.

On our way back home we were rolling along Catalina, a road that runs parallel with the beach and Pacific Coast Highway. There is a bike path adjacent to the sidewalk separated by a small curb, perfect for tripping over. Since Lilly isn’t quite up to her pre-baby body just yet, I was behind the handles to trek up a steep hill which lead us away from the beach and pier, and back into the concrete jungles of the South Bay.

With much huffing and puffing we arrived at the top, and I took the road less traveled by strollers, and went left onto the rough bike path. The gravel paved road is outdated with its loose pebbles and speed bumps. I’m not sure who thought it wise to put speed bumps on a bike path, but I imagine they are over sixty and sitting behind a desk right now trying to learn Outlook and stamping their signature onto obtrusive documents.

We were coming up to an opening in the center pedestrian-to-biker divider just as Lilly asked for her water bottle. I made a rolling-stop as Lilly snatched her water out from the bottom of the stroller. I inexplicably made a right hand dash for the sidewalk just as she cracked open her bottle and began taking a big swig. I had assumed that we were walking in complete tandem with each other. You know, when I slow down she slows down, when I stop she stops, when I make an abrupt about face turn she makes an abrupt turn. I assumed wrong. Why can’t your spouse read your mind? Well I suppose if we got that one down there would be no problems in households.

My wheels turned east, the full water bottle pressed ever so gently to her pursed lips as her head tilted back to the sky to allow mountain spring tap water to flow smoothly down her mouth. As I turned, she, well she didn’t. She was drinking while walking and heading straight for me and The Boy nestled snug in his car seat atop stroller. The clear crisp mountain spring tap water flowed down her mouth in rushing torrents as her body collided with the stroller, falling forward onto The Boy’s carriage of supposed safety. She instinctively made an attempt to catch her fall with a foot lunging forward, except in this case forward was blocked with stroller, and stroller was blocked by the ending of the center divider. So the stroller hit the curb. If the curb wasn’t there she may have been able to push the stroller away to make room for a foot forward to allow proper support to prevent the impending tragedy. But, having nowhere to go but over, and she had no footing, only falling, she went right over. As her body curled downwards onto the Boys ride, she brought it down with her. Tumbling over, Lilly brought down the baby snuggled tight in his stroller right down onto the curb with a thud. She was choking on the water as a laugh, on reflection I suppose it was a gasp for air, escaped her heaving chest. Fresh veggies from the farmers were strewn about, diaper bags contents spilling out, Lilly lying beside the now dented and scratched, over-priced $800 Peg Perego stroller-car-seat-combo, drenched in geyser water, and baby snuggled in the stroller seemingly undisturbed as the pacifier still bobbed in his mouth like Maggie, with only a whimper escaping him. Lilly checked The Boy then looked up at me in horror as I offered her my hand. Not many words were exchanged at first except for cussing and yelling. Then laughing, considering The Boy didn’t even know what happened and Lilly’s only damage was cold geyser water and a sore hip. So I walked on as I handed over the stroller to Lilly so she could lean on it as she walked to help support her new limp. Her turn to drive, I hear women tend to get into fewer accidents anyway.

We fled the accident. This would be classified as a hit and run, except the hittee was now the driver and the hitter was in the passenger seat. No one left to press charges, as long as The Boy doesn’t squeal. Considering he never really woke up, this won’t be a problem either.

Further on up the road, as we were peacefully heading towards the PCH crosswalk on the horizon, Lilly decided to make a phone call. The Boy was still resting peacefully, pacifier half hanging out of his large puckered lips. Lilly likes to walk fast so she can work off her post-pregnancy poundage, so we were burning shoe soles. She was on the outside lane near the grass as she whipped out her cell. Just as she finished dialing and pulled the phone to her ear, the Peg-Perego must have blew a tire because she veered left as the front tire caught the ditch between the grass and the edge of the sidewalk. The stroller pulled harder into the ditch until ultimately popping up onto the grass with a sudden cease of movement. Her cell phone went flying as her speeding post-pregnancy body careened onto The Boy’s ride, smashing his sun visor, her arms flailing out in front of her in hopes of making purchase onto the arm rests below. One landed, while the other caught nothing but air. Her body smashed right on top of the stroller, until her feet nearly left the ground. She lay there for a minute, gathering her pride and waiting for the redness to reside from her cute puffy cheeks. I couldn’t help but laugh uncontrollably. The Boy made but a few whimpering sounds as his pacifier again began bobbing up and down.

The Boy slept through the whole affair of our two stroller accidents in one trip and us being shat on. Could you imagine what your car insurance would look like if you got into two accidents within five minutes of each other? Could you imagine what a social worker would have thought if she saw that? Actually, could you imagine what grandma would have said if she knew what we put The Boy through at only two weeks old! Well we can still say we haven’t dropped him, just merely tipped him over and landed on him. Does that qualify as dropping?