You Be The (Suburban) Parent--Resolved

Well, this was very educational, thanks.  

To be honest, I thought A and B were gimmes.  The Boy and The Girl are rarely asleep at the same time so I've only had the luxury of doing A once.  Some variation of B occurs several times a week as The Boy tends to crash on his way home from pre-school, and The Girl and I use that time to make dinner.  I felt pretty confident in B--the car is about 25 steps from the furthest point in the kitchen--but perhaps that confidence is foolhardy.

I dream about C.  It's funny that so many of us agree that it's probably okay but worry what people might think.

*****

Anyway, here are two more suburban mysteries:

1)  Spiders.  There are spiders EVERYWHERE.  In the house.  On the playground.  In the car.  Is this just the way things are out in "nature" or is there some kind of arachnid invasion going on that I should know about?

2)  Balloons tied on mailboxes.  I've seen these before--the painfully gleeful "It's a girl!" balloons from the dark, infertile days--but this town has a thing for its balloons.  There are balloons touting high school pride, college pride, and other things that I haven't figured out yet.  Are balloons a common form of communication?  

Comments

[SarcastiCarrie]

Spiders are your friend. They eat mosquitoes and probably those blood-thirtsy ticks too.

Maybe balloons are an East Coast thing. I don't think we have any more than your average-run-of-the-mill number of balloons in my suburb. Although I have noticed that people tie balloons to signs that direct you to parties.

[megan]

ha ha! Yes, at this time of year, spiders pop out of the woodwork. I think it's the time for the end of their life cycle, etc. Wasn't there something like this at the end of the book Charlotte's Web? Hmm. Luckily it's not usually like that all year long.
And people in suburbia love balloons. It's a way to flag the fact that "something different or possibly cool is going on here and most of you can't come." :)

[rosie]

i think we're leading parallel lives. did i say this in an earlier post of yours, yet?

we also just moved out of nyc to the suburbs (to a different, but i'm sure exactly the same, town). i am lost. there are spiders everywhere (i think i saw 2 the entire 8 years i lived in the city). and mosquitoes. and chipmunks ruining my lawn. we are definitely the poorest family around and i worry about meeting new people.

so i have no answers for you, but am infested with spiders. and some of them are really really big.

[Melissa]

I think that many spiders sounds weird and I don't know what the deal is with balloons.

I wish I had seen your prior post earlier -- I'm with the majority -- A&C are fine, B isn't for me because I'd get too distracted.

I live in Europe and can't imagine anyone calling the cops on me for C. I do C all the time. When I get home from the grocery store it's often a choice between toddler loose in the house or in her car seat while I take groceries up to the entrance to our house. I got $ from the ATM today -- left her locked in the car in her car seat with the ATM 50 meters away. Seems much safer than trying to unbuckle her on the side of traffic, walk or carry her up the block, make transaction, go back, etc. It's not a big deal and I think the States has gone nuts in thinking it is.

[shelly]

Balloons also signify a garage sale. We always put a few out on the mailbox to catch passerby eyes.

I've also seen them for grad parties in May or birthdays etc. but not too often. Of course I live in Kansas where the wind blows and blows.

I(my husband) am currently powerwashing the porch and deck to get rid of spider webs and other buggy left behinds. I have a huge flock of spiders on the house right now.