Ukraine, Lockdown Drills, and Puberty
Thoughts on a Tuesday in March 2022
My son, 11, has “sort of” heard about Ukraine. He can point to it on a map. He’s seen clips online of bombed buildings and refugee children. Yesterday morning, he too-casually asked if this was World War III in between bites of his Pop-Tart.
I picked him up from school early for his annual doctor’s check up. I waited 20 minutes outside the gate for his campus to finish their quarterly unannounced lockdown drill. The janitor spoke into his radio, “Art’s all clear. Headed downstairs,” as an administrator crossed the lawn to check the pre-k classrooms. The preschoolers take cover in the window-less bathrooms during these drills.
Diverting my focus from the lockdown drills, I focused on stress of how now we would be late to the doctor’s. Everything is expensive right now. Would I get charged a fee if we didn’t get there on time? I sat in my running car with my own preschool twins, calculating the cost of gas to sit in my idling vehicle.
Don’t worry, my son laughed as he buckled up. My history teacher’s got a big metal bar in his room to use against an attacker.
Miraculously, we got to the doctor’s on time — but then, per pandemic policy, we waited in the parking lot and called the front desk to get the ok to come in. The…
