The Adventures of Lamby: Where are you Lamby?

It's ridiculous as sometimes I even ask the question when I can see my daughter holding him, I am just simply conditioned to ask the question. But other times, the real fear creeps up and takes over when I realise, I haven't seen Lamby in at least the last hour!!!

Travelling toys

Now, it is not helped by the fact that my daughter loves, and has done since a very young age, to take her toys and move them from their 'home' and hide them in a box or bag and then hide that container somewhere else!Over the last four years I have had some wonderful surprises when I come across a toy stuffed in a bag at the back of the toy cupboard which we haven't seen for some time, it's like being reacquainted with an old friend. On other occasions the surprise has not been so pleasant... the remains of a tea party, mouldy biscuits and sour milk included.

The problem with fitting in small spaces

Lamby is quite flexible, which means he can be crammed into the smallest of containers and be lost for hours. There was one time my daughter uttered the dreaded words 'Where's Lamby?'. We are now quite the seasoned professionals and run through our drill of questions; 'When did you last have him?', 'Can you remember what you were doing the last time you saw Lamby?' and so on. But she could not answer any of them on this occasion - panic set in.

We searched high and low; under her bed, through the toy boxes in her room and the playroom but he could not be found. If your child has a favourite toy you will understand the sense of terror when you realise you can't think where they could be.

Bedtime tears

As you can imagine we had a very tearful little girl getting ready for bed that evening. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I walked into the bathroom and there poking out from behind the clothes basket was Lamby. Laying there minding his own business without a care in the world. We had been so convinced our daughter would more than likely have hid him somewhere extreme that we had never actually bothered just to check each room.

As a result, we now have a (mental) checklist of places to check in the first instance before ripping the house apart!

When does a lost toy, become a lost toy?

Our problem is we never actually know how 'urgent' the matter is because, a little like me, my daughter has been conditioned to constantly ask 'Where's Lamby?' which often means he may only be laying on her bed, or in her lap but nonetheless, it puts us all in a state of high alert!

I know that I am bordering neurotic with my monitoring of Lamby's whereabouts, but it's been born through my previous unfortunate mishaps of misplacing him and because Lamby comes everywhere with us the risk is real!

Kath, Mother of 2 children - and Lamby!

Stay tuned to read more adventures of Lamby next month as he gets up to more shenanigans.