This isn’t the column I wanted to write this week. I had started an update on G’s poultry adventure, which included incubating a batch of eggs, and the trials and tribulations of him becoming a new papa.

But instead, I’ve spent the last few hours, sick to my stomach, waiting for my kids to be dismissed from school.

Another day in America, another threat to the school that came before lunch, and resulted in a massive police presence, the kids and teachers being locked down in classrooms for hours and a delayed dismissal.

We’ve had a few of these now, these ones that are “different.” Classroom lockdowns are a pretty routine event in high schools, some lasting mere minutes while a situation like someone vomiting in a hallway, or maybe a little longer if a fight breaks out.

I knew something was up when E texted that she was getting a headache from not eating. It takes something serious for kids not to be fed. No one wants to be around hangry teenagers. Pretty soon our parent text circle started blowing up with photos taken by other kids of armed police officers walking up and down the parking lot, inspecting vehicles. And then, the helicopters started showing up.

After touching base with G and E, making sure they were OK for the moment, and reminding them to put the phones away to conserve their batteries, to remain alert and vigilant, and to follow their teacher’s directions, I sat on the couch doing nothing.

I hate that we have a routine for this kind of activity. I hate that as much as I want my kids to call me and keep an open line of communication, I know that they need to put the phone away and focus. I know that I can’t distract them and the best I can do is offer platitudes over text.

Soon enough, additional rumors and reports started swirling on social media. Both of my kids have been told to stay off social media during these events and not to listen to other kids who are on it.

Every so often E would message, relaying “what the kids are saying” and I would do my best assuage her fears and to remind her to listen to the teacher for information as to what she should be doing.

It is a special kind of willpower, not to go running into the fray to try to rescue them, but I’ve been in enough emergency situations to know that I need to stay home by the phone and wait.

Soon, a few frustratingly vague messages came from the school. Dismissal time came and went. Finally, relief as G messaged me that he’d made it to his car and was waiting for his sister.

Then another whole saga unfolded as E wasn’t allowed to return to her locker unassisted and had to wait for someone to escort her to it.

Normally, I would have told her to just get out of there and retrieve her items tomorrow, but today was supposed to be a special day. She and her teammates were supposed to be leaving for the State Championship swim meet. It’s a day she had been waiting for excitedly since she and her team qualified a few weeks ago at the District swim meet, and she had needed items in her bag in her locker.

It makes me so angry that someone out there decided to turn the world upside down, today of all days. It makes me even angrier that we live in a world where this can still happen on a regular basis.

Of course I’m grateful that at the end of the day we all made it to our next destination safely. Teachers, administrators, police officers and students all made it out of the building and were able to go on with their lives.

But now, we all will live with this shadow over our heads for a while. Everyone will be on edge for the next few days. Everything will seem suspicious.

I will spend the next few weeks vigilantly making sure we all say “I love you” before we leave the house and insisting that the kids check in with me as soon as they get into school safely. I will get nervous any time the school sends a text message or a phone call. Every day, I will wonder if sending my kids to school is the right thing to do.

My kids are handling this much better than I am. “They’re used to it,” they say. It is not supposed to be like this.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News