Hot Cars

Now with the weather starting to warm up, albeit very slowly, I see a lot of posts on Facebook about leaving babies and pets in hot cars.  Along with some of those are comments that the person wouldn't feel bad at all for breaking a window to let the animal out.  Now, for the most part I'm with you.  But I just hope that before any window smashing or calls to CPS, you'd actually check to make sure the child/pet is in danger.  I know times have changed (and by a ton!), but sometimes the child/pet is in absolutely no danger and doesn't need to be rescued. It almost saddens me that people now have to put a sign up on the window that says things like "My mom/dad just ran in quick and left the AC on so I am just fine. Please don't break the glass!". It makes me think that the phrase "it takes a village..." is taken a bit too seriously.
Before we had kids, Ace came with Grant and I almost everywhere we went when we ran errands.  He loved coming with!  But we only did it if we weren't going to be in the store for very long.  Trips to the grocery store or the mall, he stayed home.  But if we went to the gas station, or the bank...places like that, he'd come with.  When we went into the store, we'd always make sure to leave the car running with the air conditioner on or a window open if it was a cool enough day to not need the AC.  Now that we have the girls, it can be a huge pain in the butt to lug them in and out of stores if I'm only running in for 1 or 2 things.  Sometimes it would take longer to get them out of the car than it would for me to just run in quick.  They usually want to bring a toy or stuffed animal with to entertain themselves on the way and it just makes more sense to leave them in the car while I run in quick.  But I'm so worried some nosy Nelly is going to see me go in, see the girls in the car and immediately call me in...even if they are not in any danger at all.  I don't like that feeling.

I guess what this whole post boils down to is this:  If you see an animal or a child in the car and you know the parent is in the store...make sure they are in danger before you take action.  Sometimes it warrants intervention, and sometimes it doesn't.