Have you EVER left your kids in the car? BE HONEST, NO LIARS OR PREACHERS WELCOME HERE!!!!

I have IBS.  For those who aren't sure what that it, it is "Irritable Bowel Syndrome".  The panic of an attack is something that no words can describe and only those unfortunate souls who share this affliction can truly relate.  For those who are lucky enough to not be stricken with this most unpleasant medical condition, I will begin by enlightening you on the symptoms (there is a point to this if you can withstand the gory details, I promise!).  First, the attacks come on like a freight train without warning.  Your bowels suddenly feel like they are going to explode!  Then the panic sets in - BIG TIME.  Your forehead starts to sweat, your bowels start to gurgle loudly, and you clench your buttocks together as tightly as you can, and then....just PRAY that you can hold it long enough to reach a toilet!  The worst times for these types of attacks to strike is when you are driving and/or out with a 4 year old and a 2 year old who cannot possibly move fast enough out of their carseats and into a store or restaurant to reach a public bathroom with you before you can no longer hold it in and delay the inevitable.  If you have made it this far while I describe the gory details of IBS, give yourself a pat on the back!  I have suffered with this horrible and embarrassing condition for nearly five years.  It is so bad that (and sorry if this is too much information for some, but I am merely being honest) when I was potty training my older daughter, I used to keep a mini potty bowl in my vehicle for those urgent situations when your child can't hold it until you reach a bathroom, and I can say with a high degree of certainty that I have probably had to use that potty bowl more times than my daughter ever did.  It seems even worse now that I am six months pregnant with my fourth child who is due in November.  I keep bottles of hand sanitizer in my vehicle, as well as a roll of toilet paper and a plastic bag - at all times!  So....this morning I dressed up my two daughters, who are 4 and 2, in their princess dresses and took them to have their portraits taken.  Afterward, I promised to take them to the toy store to look for a Tinkerbell bike helmet for my four year old to ride her new princess bike that we are purchasing for her on Wednesday.  There is a maternity shop half a block before the toy store and I needed to return a bathing suit that I had purchased for a trip to a waterpark resort that I have booked for my kids in two weeks, so I needed to stop there first for a moment.  About two lights away from the entrance to the maternity shop, the panic set in and I knew I was in trouble.  My forehead started to sweat and I could hear my bowels rumbling and I prayed, "Please God, let me make it there - quick!"  I pulled into the parking lot and parked my vehicle directly in front of the glass front doors and the floor to ceiling windows of the maternity shop, left my vehicle running with the air conditioning on full blast and the kids' Tangled Rapunzel DVD playing in the entertainment console while they were buckled into the five point harness systems of their carseats, told my four year old that I had to use the bathroom quickly and would be right back, locked the vehicle with my spare key fob (which I never leave home without), RAN into the store and told the salesgirl that I needed to use the bathroom right away and let her know that my two daughters were right outside the window in my vehicle with the air conditioning on and asked her to please watch them for a minute until I got back from the bathroom.  I was so relieved that I was wearing a maternity dress today, and not a pair of pants or anything that required me to fiddle around with to get out of, because as I was lifting my dress and desperately trying to land on the toilet seat, I began to have an accident in my panties and was able to pull them down and finish in the toilet before things went from bad to worse!  Oh glorious relief!!  My stomach felt like it literally exploded into the toilet, and the relief was instant and beautiful.  Having relieved myself, I removed my soiled panties, wrapped them in paper hand towels and threw them into the trash, then I washed my hands and ran out of the bathroom and straight out to my vehicle to get my kids....only to look out the window as I was approaching the front door of the store to find two police officers standing outside my locked vehicle peering inside at my children!!  How they came to be there within the two or three minutes that I was outside of my vehicle is beyond me.  I burst out of the front door of the store and waved at the officers and said "I'm right here!  I just darted inside to use the bathroom!"  To my horror and surprise, one of the officers told me to shut my mouth and remove my children from the vehicle and turn off my vehicle.  I complied, unbuckling my daughters from their carseats, and brought them onto the sidewalk in front of my vehicle, which again, was directly in front of the glass doors to the maternity shop where the salesgirl was standing watching it.  He then instructed me to send my children inside the store with the staff while he had a "word" with me.  My four year old daughter became very upset and scared at that point because the man, who she did not know, was telling her mommy to shut her mouth and telling my daughter to go inside the store with strangers, so she hugged my leg and began to cry.  I told the officer that she will not go inside the store without me, to which he demanded that I put my children back into the vehicle.  I gathered up my children and proceeded to re-buckle them back into their carseats, turned the vehicle back on with the air conditioning running on full blast as it had been previously, and then returned to the officer and explained that I had needed to use the bathroom urgently because I have IBS and could not have waited, and explained that I had informed the salesgirl that my children were there and asked her to keep an eye on them for a minute.  The entire time I was speaking, he was telling me to shut my mouth and stated that I was being detained.  (He had also blocked my vehicle into my parking space with his police cruiser.)  I requested that he simply go inside the store while his partner remained with me and my children to verify my story, and he commented that he doesn't need to do anything I ask him to because he is conducting an investigation.  I then stated that if he is conducting an investigation into what happened, he should be listening to what I am saying to him and he should go inside the store and verify my story with the salesladies who witnessed everything first hand.  I asked him why he was abusing me like this and why he wouldn't listen to me and check out my story with the salesgirls.  He again told me to shut my mouth and instructed me to sit inside my vehicle.  While I was inside my vehicle, I noticed that he finally went into the store to speak to the salesladies.  He remained inside the store for about ten minutes.  When he emerged from the store, I politely asked him if he was able to confirm what I had been trying to tell him, and he told me that he doesn't need to discuss the details of his investigation with me and that he was calling CAS (Children's Aid Society) to come and speak to me and possibly take my children.  WTF?  I asked him why he would hurt my family like that all because I used the bathroom for less than three minutes while my children were inside a climate controlled vehicle under adult supervision of the saleslady while I used the bathroom, and he retorted that I broke the law.  I asked him which law was that, and he said the one where I failed to provide the necessities of life for my children.  Ummmmm, what?  I stated that they were not uncomfortable or unattended for any length of time, they were safely buckled into their five point harness systems, enjoying a movie in a locked climate controlled vehicle, and under the supervision of an adult a few feet away - for NO MORE THAN THREE MINUTES WHILE I USED THE BATHROOM.  He said I was just "making excuses" that I had to use the bathroom and that I should have waited, or gone home to use the bathroom, or planned my bathroom usage better.  I reiterated that it is not an excuse, it is a medical condition, and I made the best decision - the ONLY decision really - that I could at that moment and under those circumstances and said that if I had have done anything differently I would have badly soiled myself, to which he rudely replied that next time I should just soil myself then because my children come first, and then he walked away telling me "This conversation is over."  I could not believe what I was hearing!  The entire situation was surreal.  Long story short, he detained me for an hour and a half, inside my vehicle with my two children, who were crying because they were hungry and still wanted to go to the toy store like I had promised them.  All the while, a crowd of bystanders collected and were staring at the entire spectacle.  Finally, the girl from CAS arrived.  I stepped out of my vehicle and shook her hand and introduced myself.  I was stunned to see that she was probably in her very early to mid twenties, and I asked her if she had any children.  She said she didn't, and proceeded to try to explain to me how children can be unpredictable and they could have got out of their restraints and drove the vehicle away, or someone could have stolen my vehicle with my children in it, etc. etc. etc..  My son, who is my oldest child, is 22 years old (and yes! still alive even despite having such an "unfit" mother...) and I told this young girl that I have a son about her age and that I am expecting my fourth child in a few months, and I certainly did not need to stand here and get a lecture from her, a 20-something year old girl with no children, about how children can be unpredictable.  I have successfully raised a child who is now about her age for heaven's sake!  The abusive officer then said he is writing me up for two separate tickets and handed me two citations.  I asked him what the tickets were for, and he said one was for having the car dealership's plastic frame around my license plate and he claimed that violated some law about not having my entire license plate visible (a total bullshit ticket!!) and the other was for not updating my address after we moved a couple of months ago (both my husband and I had already updated our information online on the government website!).  The citations amounted to $220!!!  There goes my daughter's new bike that we promised to get her on Wednesday.  Not to mention groceries and diapers for my kids for the next week at least.  I guess since he knew he couldn't get me for endangering my kids since they were never in any danger, and since he had attracted quite an audience and was clearly enjoying the power trip he was on, he decided he would damage my family financially as a last resort before being on his way.  I started to get very irritated and my children were crying and begging to be let out of their carseats, so I told this young girl that if she wanted to speak to me she was welcome to follow me to my home where I could get my children out of the vehicle and feed them.  She followed me home and I invited her inside my house and told her to proceed with her questions to me while I fixed something to eat for my children.  After a few minutes, she stated that she understood how extenuating circumstances can sometimes cause a parent to have to leave their children in the car, but that what concerns her is that I don't seem to be taking this very seriously, especially considering that one of the salesgirls apparently told the police officer that when I came into the store the previous week to purchase the bathing suit that I had gone there to today to return, I had left my children in the car while I shopped!!!  Are you f@$%king kidding me??  WTF?  Apparently this salesgirl had told the police that she knew I had my children in the car because at one point I had gone outside and brought my four year old daughter in while I used the fitting room.  What she did not state, however, was that it was a Saturday afternoon and my husband, who does not work weekends, was sitting inside the vehicle with our children eating a Subway sandwich while I had gone inside to shop for a bathing suit!  I was furious!  Basically, I had been detained and had CAS called on me because of an untrue and irresponsible statement made by a teenaged salesgirl????!!!!  I had to endure the humiliation of all those people staring while I was being detained in front of the store, my children had been forced to sit in their carseats for an hour and a half and my oldest daughter had been badly frightened and reduced to tears by witnessing one of the officers treating her mother that way and trying to separate her from her mother, plus had to have a CAS worker (who I again point out had never had any children and was about the same age as my own firstborn!) come into my family's home and interrogate me, and then my four year old daughter in private, all because of false statements made by some teenager working inside the maternity store who was probably trying to seem important and impress her onlooking boss?????????  Words cannot even describe how angry I am!  What's next, being detained by the police and threatened by CAS because you stepped out of your vehicle to pump gas?!!  Holy SHIT!  I guess it would be better to take your "unpredictable" children out of their carseats and let them run amuck in a busy gas station while you try to pump gas and cars are proceeding in and out of the pumps?!!  Oh sure, THAT would be SOOOOOO much better!  And yet, if a mother ever did that and her children got hurt or run over by a car, she would be labeled irresponsible for letting them out of their safety restraints and taking the chance that her "unpredictable" kids wouldn't run out in from of a car while the mother was busy pumping gas.  Or when it is pouring rain, or SNOWING blizzard conditions like it does in the winters where I live, I guess it would be better to take your children out of the vehicle while you use the ATM too, even though your car is clearly visible from the ATM and only 8 feet away in clear sight and your children are warm and safe and happy and not exposed to extreme weather conditions?!!  Reminds me of that poor woman in Illinois who parked and locked her heated vehicle 20 feet away during a snowstorm with her 2 year old sleeping inside while she took her older daughter outside to donate money to the Salvation Army, and then had to suffer the humiliation of being blasted all over the national news stations and being detained by the police and investigated by child protection services because some nosy security guard with a deranged hero complex called the police and reported that the sleeping child had been abandoned!  Despite the fact that she saw the woman exit the vehicle and walk mere feet away to deposit money into the donation collection basket.  Since when are all mothers deemed unfit for leaving their child inside their vehicle for any reason under any circumstance?  Every mother I have ever met loves their children more than their own life and we all make the best decisions we can at any given time under each and every circumstance.  Why do so many people just point fingers and make accusations when anyone with half a brain can see that the child is safe and certainly not abandoned with a parent a stone's throw away from the vehicle?  And yet, these same idiot finger pointers would be the first people to tell a mother how unfit she was for putting her children in a dangerous situation by releasing them from their carseats and taking them out of the vehicle to possibly run our in front of another car while the mother pumps her gas.  Outrageous!!!  Has anything similar ever happened to any of you?  I welcome your constructive and civilized feedback!  Any abusive feedback will not be tolerated!!!