Land of the Lost Toys

Hi All,
Lately I feel like I spend my days chasing down toys. (And you would never know it by the looks of my house!) I don't know why I feel so compelled to do so, but every so often I need to "inventory" the toys. It must be the accountant in me. I like to have all things accounted for. And when you are dealing with toys that are hauled everywhere by two 14 month olds, you are asking for a bit of insanity.
Anyway, I mostly like to have the toys that come in sets accounted for. If the shape sorter came with ten shapes, I should still be able to account for ten shapes, right? Wrong!
I suppose the biggest challenge to keeping track of the toys is when they leave the house. You go somewhere and sometimes the main objective is to leave before a major disruption (or further disruption) takes place. Accounting for toys is not the priority. But, even when the kids are confined to the house, we lose toys. Drew loves to lift the floor vents and store toys there. (We have recently remedied this by screwing down the vents.) Both Drew and Bree love to throw toys down the stairs to an eager Riley, who loves to snack on toys.
We recently had a meltdown waiting to happen, when Bree's green Santa went missing. She had to go to bed without him for a night (thank goodness for red Santa!). Upon further investigation, we found Santa down the street, surely dropped from the stroller on the previous day's ride.
I try to remember what my aunt told me when discussing the toy situation, which was "What does it really matter, anyway?" I know this to be true, but I will still count toys and go a little crazy every time! Thank goodness for the little victories. Just this week, I found a toy (while looking for another) that had gone missing around the New Years Eve and I had written off a long time ago. Some will be found and others will remain lost forever. But, in the meantime, I'll keep counting!