Double stroller = stay out!

I have a Mountain Buggy Urban double stroller, and love it. It's heavy, but it wheels around very easily. It's a side-by-side stroller, and as promised on their web site, it does indeed fit through most doors. However, the problem is not usually the doors, but the fact that many doors are not accessible because of steps, and many stores are so cluttered that even if you can wrestle the stroller inside you can't move around anyway.

We recently moved to a smaller town in Ontario, one that was established in the late 1800s. I take the boys for a walk everyday, mostly for my own sanity, and have become supremely familiar with the area. Turns out the majority of stores are not accessible, and I am reduced to peering through windows and waving at shop owners. I can get into the Shopper's drug mart and the Metro grocery store, and managed to crash my way into a children's clothing store, but that is about it. My mom visits on Wednesdays, and on those days I can leave the stroller out on the sidewalk under her vigilant guardianship and fly in and out of stores that are usually off limits. Oh, and there is the public library, with its depressing children's section in the basement, but Pin usually starts howling furiously within seconds of being in the library and I run away in a frenzy of embarrasment before somebody can start shushing me. It's a library, that's what they do.

This morning, the boys woke up unusually early after their second nap, and so after feeding them and me and getting us all cleaned and dressed, I was able to go to the Ontario Early Years Centre drop-in for the first time. This is a free drop-in centre for families with children under the age of 6, and is a good way to meet other women and children, and to have access to parenting resources and advice. It is only open from 9 to noon, which usually doesn't work with our schedule. I wanted to go for the social aspect, as I'm going a little stir crazy in this new town, not knowing anybody, and living in a chaotic house full of unpacked boxes. I dressed the boys in adorable matching outfits, made sure I didn't have any of the usual streaks of baby vomit on my shoulders, and happily marched off.

I got to the church in which the drop-in is located, struggled my way into the door with my fabulous stroller, and looked around for the correct room. A woman with an official identification badge asked if she could help me, and I told her I was looking for the drop-in. She pointed at some stairs, and told me I would have to leave my stroller outside as the centre was not accessible. She then peered into the stroller and realized that I had infant twins in tow, and said something like 'oh, that's too bad', and fled down the stairs to what I can now only imagine as the mecca of all things social, the Ontario Early Years Centre of Dundas, Ontario. I was left to struggle out the door, still in shock that anybody would think that it was a good idea to put a drop-in for parents and children under the age of 6 DOWN TWO FLIGHTS OF STAIRS. Seriously, how is that a good idea? And what about parents and children with mobility issues other than being too young to walk?

So now I am reduced once more to haunting the Shopper's drug mart and the Metro grocery store, aimlessly smearing cosmetic testers on my hands and buying yet another flavour of vitamin water in an attempt to amuse myself, with two sleeping babies in the fabulous stroller, sadly imagining all the fun that everybody else is having at the Ontario Early Years Centre.