Sad but true.

I'll admit it. I'm a suburban parent. Not a freakin' soccer mom, mind you, just a relatively normal person who used to do cool things (such as walk to work, read books without pictures, and drink in bars on weeknights) who is now the proud owner of a small child, and therefore living in the grand sprawl we call the 'burbs. I've discovered there are lots of us out here, and sadly, there's some crazy crap we find ourselves doing that is miles away from our pre-child hipster promises to ourselves. We swore we'd never own minivans and SUVs. We swore we'd still go to awesome concerts and wear trendy clothes. We swore that our children would be organic locavores that would happily dig into plates of salad greens and hormone-free chicken instead of begging us for dinosaur-shaped, cartoon-branded, microwavable "chickn" nuggets. Then, we actually had children, and all that got shot to hell.

There I things I do every day that make me know that I am a suburban parent. They simultaneously disturb, enlighten, and amuse me. I hope they will do the same for you.

One word of warning: For those of you who think you are too cool for school, who think "I'll never be like this, you silly suburbanites," and who are reading this on an iPhone on the way to your prenatal yoga class with your birthing playlist on in the background, get ready. And go ahead and start memorizing the lyrics to the Wow Wow Wubbzy theme song. 

So, without further ado, let me now present: You Know You're a Suburban Parent When ...