We had decided we had to get out of the house.
Baby Orlando was still being measured in months and weeks and hell, sometimes, Lizeth knew it down to the minute.
But he was old enough to leave the house and I was tired enough that we all had to get out.
We decided to head for the mall.
The car seat and its arcane knowledge was in our bones now. We were experts. But there was the stroller / car seat contraption that they combined into. I couldn't figure it out at home but, in frustration, I threw the thing in the trunk and figured it would unveil itself like Gabriel announcing a miracle at the mall.
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Well, that hope about the angel unveiling stuff and the stroller magically making sense was a dumb hope.
Lizeth, myself and the chariot-riding Orlando (it was a car seat but he looked like royalty) collectively fussed over the collapsed stroller that I could kind of get standing but couldn't get it to interface with the seat. Or I couldn't get it erect (hey now!) but the car seat wouldn't click. Something like that - the damn crap wasn't working.
The damn thing was like an ornery Transformer. I swear I was looking around for Optimus Prime (my childhood hero) to show up and order this car seat/stroller to turn into the trans-mode we needed. Not a plane or car or robot. And I didn't even care if it was a Decepticon, just carry.the.damn.kid.
We struggled. The thing had buttons, switches, levers all over it. There were security latches, anti-security latches, brakes (why Dear Lord were there brakes?), a cargo net and hooks. But no button that had a carry-baby-logo on it.
I cursed the thing. And I mean that Dad curse when you swear words that aren't even probably-swear-words-but-they-seem-like-it-and-it-all-stems-from-your-inability-to-put-something-together-even-though-you-are-a-god-with-tools-and-I-mean-real-tools-not-that-Allen-wrench-you-get-for-cribs-or-bbookcases-I-was-just-ready-to-throw-my-head-back-and-howl. I had lost my mall, I had lost a piece of the old life before diapers and poo in my face and sleepless nights and so on.
Screaming this far from Cinnabon seemed fair.
My growing annoyance turned ridiculous rage was not merely about a car seat/stroller combining robot. It was the confusion, the struggle of new parenting, redefining family and all other stressors that had come to surface in the last few months. All of these issues and concerns did not come with a manual; they did not come with explanations. They were life and its two hundred MPH curve-balls.
But I learned in that moment, while life may not give you manuals, it can offer you help.
There before God, man and JC Penny's, a kind woman with a child out of stroller age came by and helped my wife and I with the transformation of this contraption from collapsed, non-responsive alien from Cybertron into a fully aware Autobot, T-800 (Arnold not the shiny guy) baby carrying stroller.
She was a godsend. She was kind and looked at us with an understanding that comes only from one having been where others now struggle.
With her help, the mall was ours once again.
We could put Orlando in a car seat, in the stroller, snapping the two together and apart in now record time. We did actually use the brakes and we were able to stop cyborgs from the future and aid Bumblebee against Megatron. We were also able to shop, hit the food court and stroll around the mall.
And in about 30 minutes, Orlando was waist deep in green, grainy fuchie-cacas.