We caved. We bought the stroller. It's the high end of the low end--basically a tricked-out umbrella stroller. It has a little mesh basket underneath, a rain cover, and higher handles with wider wheels than the super-basic umbrella stroller we already had. We bought him one of those little sleeping bag-deals the French stuff their babies in when they stroll them, too. We got it separately from the stroller, figuring he can also use it as a sleeping bag/warmth bag if he needs to till he's 98 centimeters tall. (He's 73 or 74 now, as best we can measure.)

I must say that, after all my years of mockery of SUV strollers, I now see the appeal some of the high-end strollers. There were a couple in particular that we coveted: solid black or charcoal gray, actually good-looking, wheels so stable you could send them down a mountain without fearing for your child's safety, super-padded seat, adjustable handles, less bulky than some of the cheaper, less sturdy strollers... But now that I do see the appeal of the 500-600 euro range, I can even less imagine what possibly makes some strollers worth $1000. What more could they possibly have?

Since our shopping trip was in Babies'R'Us, we also spent some time coveting baby toys, and Tristram spent a lot of time trying his hardest to grab the giant stuffed animals. Today's picture is him playing with C3PO, his current favorite. We got him a set of Star Wars baby toys at EuroDisney, and he takes C3PO everywhere--to the bath, to bed, to stuff in my mouth. What with our stroller purchase, we couldn't afford to get any toys at the toy store, but here's his Sparkly Day & birthday list:

giant stuffed animal
riding toy (in French it's a porteur; I don't know what it's called in English but it's on wheels and you scoot it along with your feet)
push/pull toys
bath toys
blocks; shape sorters
Saturnin DVDs (Saturnin is a duckling. The DVDs are only sold in French, through amazon.fr.)

He's also into putting things in other things now (though it's still mostly his toys into my mouth), so toys that feature that kind of action are probably appealing.

OK, that's done. For most of you it's irrelevant, but for the curious there it is.

I didn't do my stay/go yesterday. But here's the stroller-shopping edition:

I want to stay because there are little carousels everywhere, in malls and public squares, that I wish Tristram were old enough to ride.

I want to leave because everything gets SO crowded. A French mall on a typical weekend afternoon is as crowded as an OC mall on the day after Thanksgiving.