My friend calls it "car care." The kid's fast asleep in the backseat, and you just need to hop out for five seconds. If you're in sight of the car, you leave it running. If you're going inside, you lock the doors.
It's gotten plenty of moms in trouble - like the Miami mom who left three kids under 3 in the backseat of her Cadillac this week, air conditioning going at full blast, windows rolled down, keys dangling from the ignition. This wasn't a "jump out to feed the meter, drop a library book in the drop box, grab a carton of milk . . " sort of incident. Misti Ellis was inside a store, "reading magazines." Now she's facing jail time, and deservedly so.
But sometimes, you just can't avoid it.
Earlier this year, an Ilinois woman sparked plenty of debate here on Strollerderby for leaving her sleeping 2-year-old in the warm car while she popped out to chuck some change in a Salvation Army can - with the car in plain sight. The charges were eventually dropped with plenty of moms coming out to admit, "hey, been there, done that." And yes, I'm one of them. I live in a very rural area, and on occasion have left her sleeping while I grabbed the mail at the post office or rolled down the windows and parked in front of the ice cream stand so I could jump out to get a soda for the road. I wouldn't do it anywhere but here, and I wouldn't do it without the keys in my hot little hand and her fastened tight into the booster seat. I'm guilty - I've used car care.
Which is why I'm all for the lazying-up of America. Drive-through windows? I love them. I never have to take a toddler out in the cold when I'm in dire need of caffeine. Drop boxes for the mail/library books/movie rentals? I don't care if the place is open - walking inside that building means waking the dragon in the backseat and enduring 10 minutes of screeching. The same goes for Pay and Pump credit card machines at the gas stations - pure genius.
Yes, I'll blame my ever-widening hind end on my daughter. Better that than car care.
Image: Edmunds
Related Posts:
The First Look at Booster Seats Shows - Unlucky 13 Fail
Playdate: When Two Moms Don't See Eye to Eye But The Kids Do
