WHEN a friend told me how her three-year-old son ended up wandering along the busy road outside her home I was horrified. Horrified, because I know how easily it could happen to any of us.

The phone rang. He ran out of sight. She dealt with her caller swiftly, hung up and went after him. When she got to the yard she saw her older boys had left the gate unlocked. And then she spotted him on the road.

As if the whole experience wasn't traumatic and upsetting enough, the neighbour who got to the boy and lead him to safety just before his mother reached him then reported her to social services. The fact that the neighbour involved doesn't have children is probably significant. Because most parents who hear the story will think: "There but for the grace of God..."

All it takes is a brief distraction, a momentary lapse of concentration and a toddler can be off, out of sight and hurtling towards harm faster than you can call out their name. There can't be a mother or father in the land who hasn't experienced the sort of brush with danger which, looking back, can still send a shiver of cold fear down their spine.

Like the time our milkman kindly brought our toddler safely back to our door after he ran down the drive, following his dad's car as he drove off for work, while I was busy getting the others ready for school. He hadn't reached the road, but was terrifyingly close.

Another of our boys, then aged three, was beside me one minute as we walked alongside a campsite swimming pool in France on our way to get an ice cream. The next, he was gone. I couldn't get any sense out of an English teenager, in apparent shock, babbling at me: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" as I pleaded: "What's happened? Where is he?"

After scanning the crowded pool for a few minutes, I spotted him, looking stunned, bobbing about in the deep end. Thankfully, he had still been wearing his armbands when the English girl, unbeknown to me, ran past and accidentally knocked him into the pool. I dread to think what would have happened if he hadn't had them on.

Toddlers, of course, are totally fearless and don't recognise danger. When my eldest was just two, he grabbed a red hot poker seconds after I stupidly put it aside in order to put the fireguard back on. He burnt a couple of holes, but only in the carpet and, thankfully, not his flesh.

My heart was in my mouth again more recently when I found our youngest leaning out of the upstairs window one of his bigger brothers had opened, gleefully pulling ivy off the wall.

Small children will also eat or drink anything, which explains how I once caught one of mine tucking into the remains of a tin of cat food he found in the bin. Another very nearly choked to death when he got hold of a hard sweet.

No matter how hard we try, keeping a constant watch on toddlers isn't easy. Just this week, I had yet another heart-stopping scare after taking the three-year-old swimming. As I sorted out our clothes in the changing room, he was running around behind me.

But when I turned to pick him up, he had gone. I ran round to other side of the changing room, calling his name. He wasn't there. So I checked the toilets, no sign of him. He wasn't in the showers either.

As I became increasingly alarmed, other women, who had heard me shouting his name, joined in the search. I ran back to the pool, praying he hadn't made his way back to the water.

We examined every inch. He wasn't there. Others were checking reception and the cafe. Back in the changing rooms, I called his name over and over. Silence. And then, suddenly, one of the tall locker doors swung open and Albert leapt out, stark naked.

"Peepo!" he said, grinning. I had to laugh, if only to stop myself crying.

ALBERT was delighted with his birthday present - a five foot long, snake-shaped lime green dragon, complete with satin wings and flames bursting from the mouth. He insisted on bringing it to the shops, but it kept getting tangled in the wheels of his buggy. The easiest thing was for me to wrap it round my neck. After and hour or so, I even forgot I had it on. When he fell asleep, I parked him in his buggy on the pavement outside a shop, where I could see him through the window, and had a wander round on my own. I couldn't understand why people were giving me odd looks, until I got outside and saw my reflection. Without a toddler in hand, a woman dressed in jeans and a jacket with a crazy looking boa-thing wrapped round her neck just doesn't make sense.

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Published: ??/??/2005