SOMEONE very important has gone missing in our house.

I say someone, but I am talking about a toy belonging to our daughter, which has seemingly disappeared into thin air.

This may sound like a trivial matter. But this toy, who is known as Mouse, has a magic touch has soothed her when all other things have failed. He’s been chewed and sucked and bitten as her emotions have spilled over and he’s always been there to be a crucial part of the bridge from chaos to calm.   

Mouse was bought for my daughter by her godfather, Tom, when she was a baby and his importance to her is unparalleled. He was even relatively recently bestowed with the honour of his own name by her, a key indication of his status.

I seem to be more distraught than anyone, as I hate it when things just disappear. I have been wandering around the house searching the same areas repeatedly, lifting cushions and bedding and opening boxes, utterly frustrated that he hasn’t turned up yet.

I have been going over the last day I remember seeing him, trying to imagine which scenario might have befallen him and where oh where his little self might be residing.

As we have been cleaning out the garage and the shed and the house, I am petrified that he has been sent to the dump by accident, and, at this moment, is lying in a black bin bag somewhere, dirty and rejected.

Yes, I know that he is a mere stuffed toy but parents whose children have a particular item which comforts them might understand where we are coming from.

His four years with us have been full of incident. I remember multiple occasions when I almost had a panic attack in supermarkets and elsewhere when he was dropped from a buggy and we feared we had lost him.

What seems to casual shoppers like a tatty little teddy lying neglected in an aisle can in fact be the temporarily mislaid most precious item of a small child’s existence.

Oh, we have been through the emotional mill. And I am still scarred from the time that we lost his deputy whilst on holiday. Granda was doing the buggy steering and failed to spot that pink Mouse been turfed to the pavement.

He vanished, and we scoured the streets of Spain for hours trying to find an appropriate cuddle replacement to soothe our then two year-old at bedtime.

Even though we do have an exact replacement of Mouse, this cuckoo in the nest is clean, pristine and just not the same.

Our daughter just wants her familiar (now grey) friend to return to his rightful place.