DD2 took afew years off my life tonight. AIBU to ask you for happy ending stories of mislaid offspring?

[NorthernLurker]

Dd2 (who is nearly flipping 15 btw) was helping at school open evening. I said I would pick her up 'at the front of school' at 6.30. I was a couple of minutes late home so dh set off to get her. He waited over thirty minutes then went in to find her, only to discover she had left on time at 6.30. I rang one of her friends, he said he'd seen her heading out of the school grounds, no idea where she was. It was way past the length of time it would have taken her to walk home. I was starting to panic and chucked dd3 in car (dd1 was out) and set off to drive the route she would walk home. Meanwhile dh was rallying teachers who were also ringing round. Dd2 is sensible (as in not likely to be out drinking) and law abiding. It just didn't make any sense!

As I drove towards school I was scanning the streets for her and finally on the corner before the school exit I saw her. Screeched to halt and shouted 'what the heck was she doing'. She shouted back 'where have you beeeeeeeeen' So I ordered her back in to school where we met dh. Turns out she thought she was in the right place because that's where I've picked her up from before as the school buses are in the school grounds at 3.30. After hours we've always picked up from the school drive itself. It never occurred to us that a perfectly bright 14 yr old could think out the gate and on a corner was 'the front of school'. She didn't have her phone with her because she isn't supposed to have it at school at all. A mistake we will not make again.......She must have been going out of one gate as dh drove in the other (one way system) so he didn't see her.

Anyway so a few tears all round and a feeling of relief which is still hitting me.

So what's happened to everybody else?

[TimeToMuskUp]

God, poor you, there's no feeling like the feeling when you can't find DC no matter their age.

I once lost DS1 when he was 5 in an enormous toy shop in New York. I genuinely believed it was the last I'd seen of him, it was such a cliche. The shop staff were amazing and secured all entrances and exits within seconds, and the whole place was buzzing with folk searching for him. He was found fast asleep in a small pile of teddy bears after only a few minutes. I think I lost 47 years off my life expectancy that day, and all I kept thinking was "I can't frigging remember what he's wearing, what kind of super-shit parent does that?"

Never liked NY after that.

[lighteningirl]

My two year old got out of the buggy on a busy shopping day in a busy city neither I nor dh noticed (shopping 8 week out baby in sling blah blah). We only noticed 300 yards up at a main crossing I have never run so fast a lady found him standing at a kerb sobbing my mummy my mummy I still cry remembering it twenty years later.

[isseywithcats]

i once lost ds1 in croydon high street he was about 5 at the time, i found a policeman he went one way i went the other got to the store where we normally got the bus home and heard a rather disgruntled voice say "ive lost me mom" yep luckily he had the sense to go to the bus stop, problem was i then couldnt find the policeman so told a police lady i had found him and i hope she found him quickly

[FrancesOldhamKelsey]

Oh god. When people say "in the old days we managed without having mobile phones all the time and we just were organised and arranged to meet people" I think, "yes and every now and then something happened and it took years off our lives in nervous stress". I remember as a child being at my Aunt's house when her DS's school coach didn't turn up back at school for hours at the end of a match. Not a peep out of them until they finally returned back at midnight having broken down and been transferred to a replacement coach. It took my aunt days to recover from the terror.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I lost mine when a toddler at The Tyrell Museum. I thought someone else had her and she was a bolter. We didn't find her for some minutes and I was frantic. Since then, until she was much older; reins.

[PlummyBrummy]

My brother once wandered off from the school gate after hearing an icecream van playing it's music. He went an impressive distance before he was recovered - but he was recovered!

[LaContessaDiPlump]

DS2 (2.10 at the time) got misplaced when we went to a friend's house - I thought he was bringing up the rear with DH, DH thought he'd followed me. He was located 7 heart-stopping minutes later at the very end of the close, looking a bit terrified. His little face as he wandered out from behind a garage and saw me - he looked so worried [

DS2 again (3.1, perhaps) ran off at a very crowded farm day. We found him 10 minutes later sitting on top of a small tractor and shouting 'vrum vrum'.

My grandfather took my cousin shopping with him when she was a newborn but managed to forget her somewhere en route. My aunt went batshit and raced into town, but it turned out that he'd left her in the bank and the nice ladies were cooing over her. These days that would be grounds for full NC but it seems that they got over it with a few swift choruses of 'Bloody HELL DAD' [GRIN]

[Mysteryfla]

We lost a two year old in Charleston, SC. We'd gone on a horse and buggy ride, with my DS her husband and the 4 children. My husband didn't go, he walked in the park and was over the far side looking out over the river when we came back. We got out of the buggy, paid the driver, turned round and the littlest was gone. We're looking in every direction, can't see him. My husband is shouting across the park "I've got him" because he saw us and little one waved to him and as soon as his feet touched the ground he took off towards my husband. It took a couple of minutes before we realized what was happening, seemed like hours.

[BlueJug]

DD aged 3 and a half at The Dome (now O2 arena). I was with new baby and DP. It was so crowded. Frantic searching, horrible things going through my head. She appeared on the shoulders of a policewoman, (up high to look for mummy and daddy over the crowds!).

DS at 2yrs standing beside me in Marks and Spencer. I got to the front of the queue and paid. Looked down and he'd gone. Again, frantic, staff brilliant, searched the store, ran outside to check he wasn't in the street and saw him in the shop window hands on the glass staring out, crying. He was completely confused and couldn't get out!

[NorthernLurker]

I was trying to remember what she was wearing too. Her uniform and what coat? Couldn't remember. All I could think of was how bad the poor kid's psoriasis is atm.

[wanderingwondering]

I lost my Ds at a farm- with a main road in one direction and a lake in the other. I went from calm and collected to screaming banshee in the space of about 5 minutes. After less than ten minutes an eternity I found him in the playground quite happily playing inside a bus.

[AnneElliott]

When's friend was 5, he decided he didn't want to stay at school. He climbed the fence, walked half way home and his mum found him on the common when she set off to pick him up for lunch

[Notsoaccidentproneanymore]

In Whitby with dh, ds1, ds2 and dnephew.

Dh took ds1 to the Dracula experience. He was 6 1/2. Going back to meet them afterwards, dh saw us walking towards us, so let him run down the road to meet us. Only it was really busy, and as I was pushing a buggy, we'd crossed the road. Dh then crossed the road to meet us.

But no ds1. He'd run down the road, but obviously couldn't see us. So he'd been tempted into Woolworths to look at the pick and mix. Omg, that heart stopping moment when you realize that your child isn't with an adult. In a strange town and is nowhere to been seen.

[StitchingMoss]

I lost my DS, 4 at the time, in the Mall (as in London). Awful.

If we're going out for the day somewhere busy I now always take a full length photo of both DC when we leave the house so if they get lost I can show people/police exactly what they look like!

[ZappDingbat]

One of my school gate friends, lost her son, aged about 6yrs.
They had walked home from school, and as she was walking in the front gate she stopped to talk to her neighbour believing the children had gone into the house. Her dh was home from work at the time.

After a good half hr natter she went inside and realised she couldn't see her DS. Went looking around the house for him, asking dh where he was etc. Dh said "he didnt come in the front door!"

Resulted in panic stations, with numerous neighbours out searching the streets for him. Police were called, and the police helicopter joined in the search. The poor family was frantic.

Eventually the police found him...he had fallen asleep under his bed, and was blissfully unaware of the upset he had caused.

Many years later, but I am not sure she would smile at the memory just yet.

[ivykaty44]

Glad she is safe.

Glad dds school allowed phones in bags, it made situations of concussion like this easier as DD would have text to see where we were or visa versa. We don't need to do without them now

[SansaryaAgain]

I was a bit of a bolter when I was little. My mum still tells the story of how I wandered off in M&S at 5 and she could hear me walking up and down the aisles crying "mama mama".

Then there was the time aged 4 when I gave both parents a heart attack by actually getting off a plane at Bombay airport while my mum was in the loo and my dad was so absorbed in holding my 2 month old brother that he didn't notice me slip past. They found me on the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs, having a long chat with the cabin crew about my ambition to be just like them when I grew up!

(I'm yet to work for an airline...)

[MrsJayy]

I would have strung her up i really would
dd2 then 16 went to London from scotland for a youth conference i got a text from her at york then a phone call from the organiser in London asking if id heard from her 20 minutes they couldnt find her and her phone went to answerphone the people picking her up went to the wrong platform she was where she was meant to be . I was having frigging kittens

[HicDraconis]

DS2 at around 4 - in the arrivals hall at Heathrow, by the luggage carousel. He'd been with DH on the other side of the carousel but wanted to walk round to where he could see me and DS1. DH let him go but at that point DS1 had to be taken to the loo - I got back from that, saw DH and said "where's DS2?" to be told "with you..." Most horrible felt-like-a-million-years few minutes ever, till I spotted him in the crowds and ran to him. Hate airport arrivals now!

[knackered69]

When ds2 was a baby, I left him in the reception class cloakroom

His older brother was in reception.I did the school run and was so sleep deprived that I wandered off home without ds2!

I was halfway home when I realised .I died a thousand deaths as I sprinted back up there .

He was in the cloakroom just outside the classroom when they realised. Quite happy - but waving in bewilderment at the coat pegs.

Apparently they asked the children who he belonged to , and ds1 denied all knowledge!

[CuttedUpPear]

I FOUND a toddler wandering on his own in the main shopping area of Bath earlier this summer.

He was with me for at least 5 minutes while we walked up and down looking for someone who might have lost him.

Eventually I bumped into some security guards who got things moving on the radio. A moment after that, a man came rushing towards me who I guess was small child's dad.

The man was relieved to see the child, but didn't say much to me - I didn't get a chance to tell him that his son had been heading towards a main road when I found him

[Katedotness1963]

Next door neighbour took my 3 year old to the swing park with her daughter while I stayed at home with baby. They were gone a lot longer than I expected but assumed the kids were having fun. Doorbell went and there's neighbour and daughter asking if my son was home! She had no idea where he was. If he had come home he'd have had to cross a road and train tracks.

Called my DH at work in a panic (a message that apparently was not important to pass on to him) got the wee one into the pram and started wandering the streets, looping back by the house looking for DH and to see if son was home.

Called DH at work again, told him what was happening and set out again. About half an hour later DH gets home and I'm standing at the end of the drive when a strange couple walk up with our son.

Turns out bitch neighbour was chatting with her friend and didn't notice my child wander out of the park, he met some other kids and went home with them. The parents wandered around trying to find where he came from and then phoned the police before walking him around some more streets and eventually finding us.

I have no idea how long he was actually missing. I think maybe 2 hours. I assume she spent some time looking for him before coming to see if he'd come home. To make matters worse we were in a foreign country and neither my son or I spoke the language at the time.

Scariest thing that has ever happened to me!

[Indantherene]

I lost DS1 on a beach for over an hour. He was the child who never wandered off, didn't like the sea etc.
I abandoned the two small ones (who were far more likely to wander) to go to the Lost Children point. The life guard was quite horrified when he saw them and went off to look for DS. A woman sitting nearby had actually been keeping an eye on them.
The life guard found him and we both had hysterics. I'd been thinking we'd have to wait until the beach was empty, and worrying about what I was going to tell DH.

[RandomMess]

DD playing hide & seek with us in TKMaxx - at least I was 99.99999% that she had decided to do this but a good 10 minutes into the search DH and I were starting to panic, she was 2 but pretty non-verbal.

At a HUGE car boot sale DH and I split up each of us thought a different DD with us, so neither knew she was missing for a LONG time later when we next met up. I can't actually remember any of this as I think I was so traumatised but the lady at one of the stalls where she got left behind was looking after her.