Retracing his steps...

This morning, Avery and Noel spent hours playing with little figures together.  After a while, Avery decided they should take a bath and bring the figures into the tub with them.  As they started gathering up all of the toys that they wanted to share their bath with, Noel realized that his Smurf was missing. Avery and I helped him quickly scan the house--thinking it would be rather easy to spot a 3-inch-tall, blue-and-white toy--but we didn't find Baker Smurf right away.  After looking for a few more minutes without success, I told Noel that he should retrace his steps to try to remember where all he carried his Smurf...which would, hopefully, lead us to where he left it.  So he started...

"Avery and I were playing with our toys right here in the living room....No, it's not there"

"There we played under the table for a while...Nope.  Not there."

"Then I went into my bedroom.  Maybe I took the Smurf into my room with me!  Let me go see...(run, run, run, run, run....run, run, run, run, run)...It's not in my room."

"Then I was sitting right there, and I had the Smurf's hat in my mouth, and you told me to not put toys in my mouth....(GASP!)...Oh NO!...(worried/nervous look comes over his face)...Maybe I swallowed my Smurf toy!"

Noel immediately grabbed his throat, as if checking to see if his toy was still (ignorably) lodged in his esophagus.  Then his exam moved to his stomach.  As he stood, stone-faced, pushing and poking on his abdomen in search of his potentially-accidentally-ingested plastic friend, I located the misplaced figurine in an open UPS box in our entryway.

I held up the toy, showing him that I'd found it.  "Yay!  Thanks, Mom!" he said as he bounded toward me to retrieve his prized (in that moment, at least) possession.  As he headed down the hall to join his sister in the bathroom, he shouted over his shoulder, "I guess retracing my steps doesn't really work that well for me, after all.  I don't remember ever seeing that box...."