Left the house at 6 in the morning one cold February day, pouring rain, to drive down to Leeds.
'Cos of the rain, must have left the outside storm door open.
Dh gets up at 7, has his shower, ds, who has just started walking wanders in the bathroom and then wanders away again - pretty normal stuff. Dh finishes shower and goes to look for ds - can't see him anywhere. Goes downstairs, no sign. Goes upstairs, no sign. (Remember, our "main" floor is the first floor).
Goes back downstairs and sees trhat I have left the storm door open. The problem with that is that one of the panes of glass on the inner door has been taken out, to allow the cats to get to the cat flap outside. SO he looks outsdie, can't see anything.
Goes back upstaris, looks again. Starts to panic. The he hears a cat outside - and remembers that our cats (Siamese) can sound like babies, so wonders......
...... Goes back outside and listens hard. Hears the sound of a child crying in the distance. Follows the sound and find ds standing by the far side of the wall of the house next door, wailing, in the pouring rain! (Remember, these are big houses, with fair sized gardens).
Judging by lack of mud on his babygro, he had toddled down the drive way, truned right, toddled along the pavement and then turned right up the next driveway - which is the exact route he takes every night when he comes home from the childminder (the house on the other side of us). But of course - he wasn't home, so now he was lost!
First thing I knew about was when I rang dh at 7.30 to ask how things were !
Now we can laugh at what a car driving along the road at 7 am must have thought at the sight of the wee rugrat toddling along the (fortunately very wide) pavement)