How Does This Happen...

While I was rocking Rylen to sleep for his nap yesterday I caught the Oprah show. It was about this woman from Ohio who left her 2 year old in her car for 8 hours in a sweltering car. You know what happened.
She said that it wasn't her normal daily routine to take her 2 yr old to the sitters, but that morning her husband couldn't do it, so she had to take her (the 2 yr old) and her older child to pre-k. She was vice principal at a middle school and it was the first day of classes. She wanted to drop off the 2 yr old first, but it was too early for the sitter so she went on to drop off the older girl first. Then she stopped to get doughnuts for the teachers. One thing struck me then...she stopped to get doughnuts, the baby was asleep, so I'll go ahead and make assumption...she left her in the car while she went inside the doughnut shop?? That was negligent in and of itself. You never leave a child alone in a car. How stupid. So she drove to school and a camera caught her unloading her stuff out of the back of the suv. Couldn't she see the baby in the car seat? She closed it and went about her day. The 2 yr old was still sleeping in the car.

I did feel compassion for her at the time, she was upset. Parents do stupid things sometimes, we're not perfect. But to actually forget you have a kid in your car is just beyond me. HOW do you do that? This lady even said she was talking about her kids that day, even passed by the child's window a few times while she was unloading stuff. She went on to say she was just so thrown off by the change in routine, the fact that she is never the one to drop off the 2 yr old, and it being the first day of school....bullshit. Absolute BS! So I guess it wasn't her routine to care for her child?? How do you become so dependant on your own routine that you forget you have a child sitting right behind you??
Has she lost sight of what it is to me a mom? Crap happens, things NEVER go the way they are planned as far as my family is concerned, something always throws us off, but that's just part of being a mom and having kids.
Was she just so wrapped up in her job and getting there- even being extra nice and getting doughnuts for the teachers while leaving the child in the car alone- and then let your child die strapped to a car seat in a 150 degree car? How, as a parent, do you lose sight of the very reason you became a mom...to care for and protect your child? That should be the very center of your life.
How ANYTHING can take precedence over that is soooo beyond my comprehension.
So after all of this, she was never charged with anything. Nothing. Not child endangerment, negligent homicide...nothing. Accident or not, it is a crime to leave a child in the car unattended. Did she get off easy? Absolutely. She put the child in the car that morning, and left her there to die. She wasn't entirely unknowing because she put that poor baby in the car, she didn't just climb up and buckle herself in. She knew she was there.
Maybe I sound like a judgemental bitch, but it just upset me to hear her give excuses about her routine. And then Oprah turns to her and says that there were 30-something children that have died this way in a year "so you're not the only one". Does that make it any better?