Saturday morning several police cars, an ambulance and firetruck bounded down our sleepy street and MANY officers and EMTs rushed in to our neighbor’s house. The kids piled on top of one another in the front window and I peeked out the front door. All concerned-citizen like.

I kind of know those neighbors. It’s the house diagonal to ours, and I know they like the Cubs, and when Noah was a baby she used to stop by in the yard and say hi. (Um, Noah is 9 now.)

Sometimes we wave when we pass each other in our cars.

But that’s about it. I’ve lived here almost 11 years and that’s all I know about this poor neighbor that is now being taken away on a stretcher. “It’s that nice blonde girl across the street, honey!” I yell to Jeff. “I hope she’s ok.”

I felt a sadness in my heart that in our tiny neighborhood, I only REALLY know like 3 families.

Then, in church on Sunday, our Pastor brought up this awful side effect of suburbia 2010. We’ve closed ourselves off. We don’t know our neighbors.

Last night we went on a wagon ride down our driveway and all through the five streets in the neighborhood. I told the boys I’d like to do this every day after dinner. Maybe even every morning after breakfast with my younger two. Surely with the nice weather we’ll see people outside and we can wave, say hi, maybe stop to introduce ourselves.

Maybe finally meet the parents of all the kids that eat my snacks and hang out in our yard every day.

Also, as Carter rides his bike it allows me to watch how he handles the street and sidewalks, and all of the kids can become more familiar with their surroundings. What if they ever wandered out of the yard some day? Now they’ll know where our house is in relation to each place we walk.

We aren’t going door to door passing out our church’s flier. We just want to stop hiding on our safe little corner. We will be more inviting.

I am going to take a fruit and veggie plate to the new couple that moved in across the street. They just had a baby 2 weeks ago. I’ll give them my phone number this time. (And I also will tell them about our church but I planned to do that anyway.)

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Stephanie is Mom to three boys & a baby girl in Valparaiso, IN and blogs daily at Adventures In Babywearing . Follow her on Twitter- she’s babysteph .