Thank you Albee Baby

When I was a baby I had a doll named Albee.  Who knew the name would be of such great assistance to me some 35 years later.

When my first child Zachary was born in June of 2009, I have to admit I was totally clueless on most baby products.  I barley knew how to open my kid's strollers.  Again, I was clueless.  I recall one of the first times I took my son out by myself.  I took the stroller put him in it and strolled down stairs.  My plan was to go to meet my wife who was getting her hair cut in the village.  My wife was still on maternity leave and this was my first trip out one my own.  The skip hop diaper bag was packed with all the necessities.  I grabbed the stroller and headed out and got a cab.  For some reason I was able to close the stroller and take the car seat part out and situate it safely in the cab.  Everything was going great.  No traffic, we were heading downtown.  I felt so accomplished.  We got to our destination.  I grabbed the car seat, undid the seat belt and carried it to the trunk where I thought I would be able to open it in a snap.  So I tried and tried and and tried even more.  Couldn't get it open so I had to carry the car seat with my son in it and the stroller on my back.  What a disaster. I arrived at the salon in the village and saw my wife and the hairdresser saw me carrying everything and my wife said, "you are going to Albee Baby so they can teach how to do things."

I must admit, some if not most, of the baby products I bought were purchased in other stores, but they were still willing to go through step-by-step how to open and close all my strollers. I had a bugaboo and a  Maclaren baby stroller. I recall we were traveling with our bugaboo in the Philly area when one of the wheels came off.  We were without the stroller the rest of the trip.  We brought it back to the major baby products store, and they were completely unwilling to fix it, saying we had to send it back to he company.  We were furious and demanded they explain how an $800 dollar stroller was already broken and how could we be without a stroller.  The store was unwilling to help us, but Albee's was.  They replaced the wheel in seconds and made sure it was secure.  We used the stroller for five years after that, no thanks to the major baby products chain.  The Albee Baby staff  taught me how to open and close them and even described in detail how to install and take out a car seat.  The salesman  let my wife and I drive the car up to the store and came outside, while they said it wasn't legal for them to install it, he talked us through the entire process step by step.

With the help of the Albee Baby staff, I was able to be confident enough to take the stroller on the subway, this was when most stations didn't have elevators.  I would often see nannies carry their strollers with the kids in them down the stairs and I would be able to do this now confidently (mind you very, very slowly).  I recall being interviewed for a channel 2 news and told them I had the utmost respect for nannies ability to carry strollers with the baby intact up and down the stars.  I brought all my products to Albee baby and got many tutorials and even had them come up to my apartment to see if everything was baby-proofed correctly.

Two years after my son was born my daughter Sarah was born.  At this point I was very confident taking my son anywhere by train.  We took trips to the Bronx Zoo.  The Central Park Zoo,  where we would go for lunch.  The American Museum Of Natural History and Gymboree rounded out our favorite places. When my daughter was born we started using the Bugaboo exclusively, mainly because by now all the stations that I traveled too had elevators and the staff at Albee Baby had installed a skateboard on the stroller which my son would go on while my daughter was in the stroller.  There wasn't a site in NYC that we missed.  I even took them on the Circle Line and to the Statue of Liberty and many, many Knicks games, although my kids were probably better at basketball than the Knicks were.

I'd like to thank the knowledgeable  staff at Albee Baby because without them, I'd still be standing by the salon trying to figure out how to open the stroller.