We had gone to the wonderful Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Conn., with one of my wife’s best friends and her son. The aquarium is small but nice: they have seals, sharks and even sea jellies you can pet.

Honestly, if you get a chance to pet sea jellies in a controlled environment, I totally recommend it. The staff at the aquarium was very knowledgeable, explaining why they kept the jellies in a frigidly cold tank and about their life cycles. Though no one had an answer to the sea jelly versus jellyfish debate. Seriously, does that look like a fish?

After a nice lunch at a local Greek restaurant, we walked back to where we had parked our cars just down the block from the aquarium. It turned out to be next to a playground that seemed very modern with nice new equipment.

The sign at the entrance to the park explained that it was a “Sandy Ground” project. This one was sponsored by Goldfish crackers, hence the goldfish icons all over the place (turns out Pepperidge Farms, makers of Goldfish crackers, is headquartered in town). But what exactly is a “Sandy Ground”?

This Sandy Ground is one of 26 playgrounds built in areas devastated by the October 2012 Hurricane Sandy in honor of the 26 lives lost in Sandy Hook elementary school shooting a few month’s later just about 19 miles from this particular playground.

This playground was built in honor of Allison Wyatt, a 6-year-old killed by a gunman with an assault weapon in her own first grade classroom. The playground that day was filled with kids running, swinging and laughing. The kind of joy that was snuffed out almost six years ago.

At the time, people were sure the cold-blooded massacre of those 6- and 7-year olds and their teachers, would be the tipping point in the gun debate in this country. Sad to say, it has just gotten worse. So much worse.

It is nice that there is this playground that overlooks the water and has paths to hiking trails. It’s nice that there is a place for your kids to wear themselves out a little more after the aquarium. You watch your kids run and jump, but at the same you can’t help thinking about little Allison and her classmates and the cold hard fact that they cannot enjoy these playground built in their memory.

Visit the website for Where Angels Play, the organization that spearheaded the building of the Sandy Ground playgrounds, to learn more about the project. Click the “Our Playgrounds” link on that site to find the locations near you.

A version of this first appeared on Great Moments in Bad Parenting.

My wife and I didn’t hear the gunshots.

We were picking Penny up from school when suddenly people were running back inside. What’s happening? Should we go? To the car? Inside? Is there danger? Get the kids!

Penny and Simon were walking toward the car, against the wave of parents, students and teachers, like two tiny salmon swimming upstream, without a care in the world. We were soon among the last people still outside. Penny! Simon! Over here! Stay right next to us.

“MOVE NOW!” a teacher shouted. “Someone is shooting. Get in the building NOW!”

Allie is normally at work for pickup, but was excited to get Penny on this special occasion. She took a half day off because it was Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year. This is not, however, the kind of bang she had hoped to start the year off with. Instead, it was a depressing reminder that we live in a world where we are happy our child’s school has a plan to protect her and her classmates from an armed assailant.

Let me back up and be clear, this was not a “school shooting” incident. The gun fire was outside the school, which is why we were being corralled back inside for a lockdown. From the get-go, it was apparent that whatever this was, it had nothing to do with any of the students, parents or faculty. Directly across the street from the school is a housing project littered with empty beer cans and broken bottles. Maybe that’s where the violence started. Maybe whoever was being shot at would seek refuge in the school and the gunman would follow. We had no idea and that’s what was scary. We’ve all seen it on the news: “stray bullet hits innocent victim.” We live in Jersey City and gun violence, while certainly not an everyday occurrence, is not uncommon.

School lockdown begins

We were ushered into a classroom with 20 or so students and another parent and her child. There were two teachers with us. They started the lockdown procedures: pulling down the shades and blacking out the window on the classroom door, though I’m not sure if it was locked. One of the teachers vigilantly watched the door, while the other teacher patrolled the window. If someone wanted to force their way in, I imagine they could have done so. But still the teachers stood guard. They’d practiced this.

Students and parents alike were told to sit against a wall and be as quiet as possible. The room was meant to seem empty. It was darker than a classroom should be and quieter. It was very quiet until Simon, who is two and a half and curious, wanted to know what was going on.

He asked LOUDLY and REPEATEDLY.

There was a petrified student hiding under a desk whose eyes pleaded with me to shut that kid the fuck up. Wanting to be of some help, anyway, I found a few scraps of paper and crayons for my kids to entertain themselves. They colored and the room was virtually silent once more. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do anything else, but at least I could do that.

Some time passed. Everyone started breathing again. The teacher guarding the door told us that as soon as she got the signal, we’d all be able to leave. The announcement came over the P.A. system a minute or two later.

Looking back at the lockdown, nothing really happened. It turns out the incident occurred a couple blocks away and we were never in danger. At the time, however, the situation was genuinely frightening. It offered a rare glimpse into every parent’s worst nightmare: something horrifying happening to your scared child in a place where you cannot possibly protect or comfort her, because you’re not there. Even as the stay-at-home parent, I am not with Penny for at least eight hours a day, five days a week.

One of the reasons I like this school is because of its security. That sounds tragic, I know. There are a ton of other reasons, too. Most of them are actually related to my daughter’s education. But when we were looking at kindergartens, I appreciated that everyone had to be buzzed into the school and walk past a security guard. I don’t want anyone in the school that doesn’t belong there. After seeing the security plan carried out, I feel even better. I trust Penny’s school and I know that when she’s not with me she’s in good hands.

Also, I feel sad. Knowing something bad could happen is different than knowing it really could happen.

On the ride home, when Allie and I were breathing deep sighs of relief we talked to Penny about the experience. She told us that she understood someone was shooting a gun outside the school, though she didn’t know why.

“Didn’t they know kids could get hurt!?” she asked, naively not understanding the un-understandable.

A version of School Lockdown first appeared on Amateur Idiot/Professional Dad. Photo by DXL on Unsplash.