The cumulative weight of living in a terrifying world

Was just getting started writing a post this morning and whoops, turns out there was a lockdown at my kid's preschool because of some "threatening messages" directed at teachers, and we were "advised" to go pick them up. I have never cleared the house with the baby and gotten to that school faster. I pulled on the first pair of pants I found (it's VERY hot today, but the mad ticker-tape scrolling through the front of my head reasoned "you don't want to wear shorts in this kind of situation"), went to grab the deeply-asleep baby, hustled downstairs on legs shaking with adrenaline, strapped the shoeless, confused little guy into his carseat, and drove legally and carefully but very very fast, wasting no moves and waiting for no slowpoke drivers. Pulled up outside, snatched baby, flip-flopped across the parking lot in the house flip-flops I'd forgotten I had on, got through security and nearly imploded from DEFCON 1 anxiety while the kid futzed around putting away the placemat she was using and saying goodbye to her friends and all that normal-day bullshit. Wearing my "this is unusual but kind of fun! whee!" face, I made normal conversation as I prodded her to move move MOVE so we could get the FIZZUCK out of there. Christ that was rough. And as far as I know, nothing even happened.