And.... breathe.
Kids have an amazing ability to disappear. There's nothing quite so chilling as turning around in a crowded place, and realising that they're nowhere to be seen...

One of the most beautiful moments I can remember was seeing the museum worker leading my 4-year-old daughter towards me, after about 40 years minutes of buttock-clenching panic and mental horror shows.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 17:41, 7 replies)

When my three kids were of a preschool age
we suddenly realised they they had gone quiet, when they're usually playing a game of 'Bedlam' in the bedroom. So we went upstairs to see and they weren't there. So we went into the other bedroom and they weren't there.
We called to them and there was no answer and we checked the doors which were both locked and none of the windows were open. We did a systematic sweep of every room, calling out, checking under blankets and under beds and the understairs cupboard.
We went back upstairs and we heard muffled giggling. They'd only gone and hid in the wardrobe and we were greeting with laughing kids when we opened the door and found them.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 19:02, closed)

The same daughter
Discovered she could fit into the lockers at the swimming pool...

Thankfully I know how her mind works, so I hit the right place to look reasonably quickly. Not quickly enough for the blood pressure, of course!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 11:49, closed)

Hell yeah.
The amount of upset I caused when I realised that the top of my cupboard was a perfect space in which to read a book by candlelight.

I think my mother is still a bit paranoid when she sees me pick up a book.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 9:19, closed)

This hasn't happened to me yet
... but I'm just waiting for when it does, because it happens to every parent, and I know I did it to my parents.
(Neil_E_There didn't the Aussies used to be good at cricket?, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 11:14, closed)

Eep
That happened to us in May - we went to a place called Sundown Adventureland with our friends and their 2 kids and, in the middle of a play bit with loads of things to go in, our daughter vanished.

Cue much panicking and hunting... 20 minutes of panic and going in to tiny buildings and the like, we find her - she'd gone up to go down a curly slide and decided to not after all and took her time coming down the steps. We were suitably relieved.

(In hindsight) A "funny" part was that our friend was watching her two while scanning for our daughter, turned her head to tell her two off and our daughter must have run/walked right past her.
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 13:53, closed)

Just happened to me
...at the seaside. With fairly powerful waves. In France.

It's a very nasty situation. In between searching the beach and shouting his name, I was scanning the waves for his hat, because "his hat will float, right?" It still makes me go cold thinking about it.

And then, after 15 minutes or so of bellowing up and down the beach, one of the nice helpful French people who were also looking for him points up the beach and I see him holding my wife's hand. He'd just got disorientated and wandered off the wrong way.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 16:53, closed)

Thats why you should never have just one kid. You always need a spare.
(XmanX captain upsetter hahahahaha, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 20:09, closed)