Unfortunately, parents have relatively short period of time after discovering that their little angel can now move somewhere between Mach 2 and light speed, before said angel learns to walk. It is a little known law of physics that little angel's speed is inversely proportional to the number of limbs they use to navigate. Once the dreaded "walking" stage is reached, the little angel jettisons the impulse engines and the warp drive is brought online. However, their language skills are still less than ideal for communicating basic facts to adults, and most tattoo parlors won't stencil their address and phone number across their foreheads for you. This can lead to the scenes like the following.
Mommy plays softball after work on Wednesday night. A close of friend of Mommy's picks the little angels up from the day care provider, takes them home, feeds then dinner, and puts them to bed. The theory is that when Mommy arrives home at approximately 9 p.m., she can give the sleeping bundles of joy a gentle kiss on the forehead, sigh contentedly, and spend a couple of hours relaxing with her friend after having had the evening off. That's the theory.
The reality goes like this. Mommy approaches the house, and notices an extra car in the driveway, signaling the arrival of out-of-town (and unannounced) guests. Mommy is greeted in the driveway, before she can exit the car, by three frantic adults competing to inform her that Darling Angel 02 is missing, has been missing for quite a while, and all their searching to this point has proved fruitless. Mommy walks directly to the telephone, calls the police, and passes the information to the nice dispatcher. The nice dispatcher is delighted, as there is an officer cruising the neighborhood with Darling Angel 02 in tow, attempting to find his home. Address information is given. Mommy returns outside to await the arrival of Darling Angel 02.
Shortly a nice police officer drives up, Darling Angel 02 hustled off to bed by the close friend, and Mommy has a conversation with the nice officer. The nice officer reports that kindly neighbors discovered Darling Angel 02 sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, crying. As they didn't recognize him, they called the police. The nice officer managed to calm Darling Angel 02 with the promise of a ride home, and asked where he lived. According to the nice officer, Darling Angel 02 gave him a look of deep disgust that an adult could be so incredibly stupid and replied, "My MOMMY'S house!" The nice officer said the look was such that he could almost hear, "Where do you expect a little kid like me to live?"
The nice officer asked what color Mommy's house was. Darling Angel 02, proud of knowing his colors, called off the color of every house they passed. The nice officer sighed. It seems that the reason the nice officer never found the house on his own, and never managed to contact the civilian search party composed of Mommy's friends, is that ALL of them thought it was impossible that Darling Angel 02 had managed to cross the busy 6 lane highway separating two neighborhoods, and both had restricted their respective searches to their own side of the highway. Mommy turns pale. Mommy thanks the nice officer and returns to the house, in search of a stiff drink, chanting in a droning monotone, "I love my children I love my children I love my children. . ."