Sod NCT.... bring on the Lego lessons

Here's a question: how is it that the world seems full of people trying to flog stuff and life lessons to prospective and new parents.... but none of it is remotely useful? Where, for example, are the Lego lessons? It's okay for the architecturally-minded: your towers and houses and farms and cities just seem magically to slot themselves together. But what about the rest of us? For some reason those multi-coloured bricks have me stumped every time. 

Try as I may, I just can't work out how to get them to do anything more interesting than make a very tall tower. (Although I am a dab hand at a spot of colour co-ordination.) Which means I look enviously at everyone else's creations. Even a simple Lego tunnel over the train tracks (thanks Louis' Grandad) had me turning green. And as for Daddy J's Eschereque marvel, with twisting staircases leading up to Lego heaven, well, I refused to let Louis destroy it for days. I briefly had a good thing going with the odd skyscraper, but they weren't very stable. I've tried copying the pictures on the front of the Lego box but what sort of a lesson in creativity does that send Louis? 

The same goes for "crayoning". It's all very well for Louis to demand "Mummy come crayon" but what I want to know is: Crayon what? Even after a 20-year break, I'm still just as useless as drawing horses' legs as I ever was, a fact I still find unutterably frustrating. Louis might be happy scribbling away with a green pencil and calling it a "zebra" but I'm afraid that's a step too avant-garde for me. I found myself cheating and buying one of those how-to-draw-animals books from the Tate the other day, but my efforts are still pretty lousy. You'd never know I got an A at GCSE art. 

Singing would make another potentially useful ante-natal lesson if you ask me. For years, no, sorry, decades, the only singing you ever have to do is either the odd Christmas carol, or in extremis - or better still under the influence - some karaoke after hours. And then suddenly it's non-stop lullabies and nursery rhymes at all hours. And in all locations. We can be in a shop, out for a walk, on the tube: Louis isn't fussy. Neither is he choosy about the actual songs. "Mummy sing it the polar bear one," was his ultimate classic. Um, what polar bear one?? Now it's one of his all-time favourites. 

And what about a drama class or two to help with those bedtime stories? How much more fun would reading out loud be if you could actually pull off the odd regional accent? It might make the umpteenth reading of Tiger who came to tea a bit more interesting. 

Have I missed anything out? Perhaps I could be onto something here......