I bought my double stroller pretty early in my twin pregnancy, around twelve weeks. I remember it very clearly because a friend of mine spotted it at a garage sale and texted to tell me I needed to go buy it right now. I was on a work retreat and wasn’t able to snag it at that moment, so I went to the seller’s house later that day, knocked on the door and awkwardly asked if she still had it. It was there, waiting for me: a Bumbleride Indie Twin, green, in excellent condition and priced at a quarter of what I would have paid in the store.

Fast forward six months. The twins had arrived! They were tiny and cute and never slept at the same time. They demanded so much from us. I was delirious. I was scared to take them anywhere, terrified they would scream at me in tandem, needing to be fed or changed or held or something I couldn’t figure out. So, at far younger than the stroller manual recommended, I strapped the babies in the stroller and started walking. We walked, then we walked some more. A lap around the neighborhood in the morning. Then another one in the afternoon. Then after dinner, a walk before bedtime. The stroller walk became my retreat.

Eventually the personal escape of the stroller walk turned into my social outlet. The lap around the neighborhood ended with playtime at the park. I began to meet other moms from the neighborhood. I texted my friend Michelle, a neighbor and fellow twin mom I met through Fort Worth Mothers of Multiples, and we walked together. I met another neighbor, Judy, just out in the street one day as she was going to visit a friend. A few days later, she spotted my green double stroller; we began to talk and set up the first of many playdates for my girls and her granddaughter.

We left evidence of our stroller walks all around the neighborhood. As the girls got older and more independent, they required a whole slew of items just for a short walk - breakfast, snack, sippy cup, another snack, toy, book, pacifier, many of which were thrown overboard during the course of the walk. In turn, my walks sometimes doubled in length as I traced my steps in an attempt to recover the lost items (pro tip: if your soothie pacifier gets run over by a car, just run it through a dishwasher cycle and it’s as good as new). As I got to know more neighbors, I would even receive texts letting me know they had found our little dolly on the ground a couple streets over, usually covered in tire tracks by the time I got to it. 

I have worn the wheels off my stroller several times, once pushing it over a mile with a deflated back tire (pro tip: don’t do that). It’s had entire cups of coffee spilled on it, been disassembled, soaked, scrubbed and reassembled. It’s been unintentionally pushed down a hill with the brake on, then had the brake replaced. It’s been to the zoo, Sundance Square, trick-or-treating, an Aggie football game (whoop!), a scavenger hunt with some twin friends. It’s been flipped over by two standing twins. It’s had the snack trays’ stitching torn and then reinforced with the help of grandma’s sewing machine. The stroller has been my steady source of escape for the last 4+ years.

My girls are now almost five, and our stroller walks still happen, though not as frequently as they used to. The twins’ feet now hang past the footrests, and they often ask mommy to go faster and get to the park already. They prefer to ride their bikes sometimes, or to push their baby doll strollers instead. But as long as I can convince them, I’ll keep taking them on stroller walks. And when anyone asks me for the must-have item for twins, my answer will always be: a good double stroller.

Author: Tyler Wright is mom to four-year-old twins Audrey and Juliette. She is a CPA, yoga instructor, Moms Group Coordinator and Public School Liaison for her neighborhood association, and Webmaster and Newsletter Editor for Fort Worth Mothers of Multiples.