When we were kids, I remember it was always kind of fun when we did fire drills in school. The alarm would sound, and you didn’t always know if it was a drill or the real thing (btw- it was never the real thing), but you would line up and head for the doors, get outside, and wait in lines all around the school. After about 10 minutes you would get the all clear and head back in. By the time you got back inside, it took the teacher a good while to calm the class down. And if you were lucky, a whole class period was messed up because of the drill.

Well the other day C came home and told us that they were doing bad guy drills. Bad guy drills!!

And my heart sank.

She doesn’t know what an active shooter is. She doesn’t know that people have gone into schools and done heinous things to children. She doesn’t know that it is a fear that lives in the back of the minds of every mom and dad at some point or other.

She thought it was fun. A little adventure. A break from her class time.

Don’t get me wrong. I am so very thankful that the schools practice this, but it is a reminder of how times have changed since my childhood. My kids are growing up in a post-Columbine, post-9/11, post-Newtown world and it’s very hard for me to accept that we as parents have to be much more vigilant than previous generations… and that makes me sad.

For the past few nights, C has been asking to do Bad Guy drills here at the house, so we have been practicing here at home. We let Baby E be the bad guy and the kids tiptoe and hide from him as quietly as possible. They think it’s a game. And I pray to God that is all it ever is.

This evening at dinner we were talking about bullies and how sometimes C bullies Big E.

C- I’m not a bully!!!

Big E- Yes you are. But you dress like a big sister!!