We went to the mall with confidence in our decision to purchase the Bugaboo Frog from Baby Style on Tuesday night. When we arrived they informed us that they were no longer able to sell us the Frog in Red. Instead they offered us only the choice between the Chameleon or the Gecko. Sarah has been fawning over the Frog for about eleven months since we went to shop for a baby shower last year. It is a cool looking beast at the top of the market with attachments for a pram, car seat adapter, and can convert to working as a stand-up stroller as the baby starts to sit in a more horizontal position. At first I was excited as an owner of weird looking and slightly odd vehicle, the PT Cruiser, I thought the Frog might be the right fit for my style even if it was particularly expensive. The split into the Gecko and the Chameleon took us by surprise because the price shot upwards from $729 to $879 for the purchase of the better stroller and the Gecko was described by the staff at the Baby Style location as not being worth it. The attachments for the Gecko didn’t even have handles.

So having our resolve broken by the pricing changes I spent a few hours looking for ways to purchase the Frog at lower prices while it is being discontinued. Unfortunately it has been holding it’s price on eBay, Craigslist, and PriceGrabber. Along my many journeys I found a discussion comparing the Frog with the Quinny Buzz and after having seen the Buzz I was at least sold that the Buzz, because it can only be acquired from European sources is a more rare bird on the streets of Brookline.

The problem is that we just purchased the Peg Perego Primo Viaggio car seat today because Sarah’s mom had a 15% off coupon at Baby Style and Sarah’s grandmother already bought the extra base for the baby shower. So with the car seat selected that affects the decision on the stroller since these things when compatible click together. So I spent a little bit of energy trying to figure out if the Buzz, which also has a very cool folding and unfolding system, could connect to the Peg Perego car seat. While I’ll probably spend thousands of hours searching for the perfect high tech manly stroller it is proving a good gadget hunt. The Quinny has the edge in terms of style for now while the Bugaboo loses points for not negotiating in good faith and changing their models and prices but the Bugaboo may be the only thing compatible with our car seat strategy.