Reasons for having more children. Part 1

Some time ago, about 15 months ago in fact, I mentioned that I might share some reasons for having more children. So here are some of the things I've thought of in retrospect that I would like to have done with my children, to enrich my life a little, and possibly their lives too.

Teach them the alphabet in a different order

I've often thought that the order of our alphabet could be improved.  The vowels aren't equally spaced and the most commonly used letters are thrown in all over the place; and having "M" and "N" next to each other is just asking for trouble, in my opinion.  In my late teens I came up with my "new, improved" alphabetical order.  My main criteria were that the vowels should be evenly distributed, and the most commonly used letters should all be near the start.  Additionally, it should maintain the same scansion and rhyme as the original ABCDEFG, HIJKLMNOP, QRS, TUV, WX, Y and Z, such that it fits the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". One of my favourites was

• STERNMAD, HLYFOJKB, ZIG, QXP, WC, U AND V

which also dodges the awkwardness of Z only rhyming correctly if it is pronounced "zee", which we know is only for fools, and Americans.
Now, the important thing is to teach this to your children before they start school. So long as they know which letters are which, it'll make learning "traditional" alphabetical order more of a challenge for them ,thereby making their minds more agile, and giving them a better foundation in having to deal with life's challenges.

Teach them the wrong animal noises

Again the keyword here is consistency.  It's not enough to confuse them about which animals make which noise, but they need to learn that cows say "baa" and horses say "woof" before they start mixing too much with other people and children.  Banish all children's books and toys that have pictures of animals to press, which purport to result in the right noise being emitted.  If other adults have been in the house saying stupid things like "Oooh, look at the lovely cat.  Say 'meoww' Mr Cat", as they are wont to do, the child must be reassured after disruptive adult's departure that you and the child are right, and the other "old people" have dementia.  Something along the lines of "Silly old grandad, thinking cats say 'meoww".  Everyone knows they say "oink".  I think he was trying to play a trick on you, or maybe he's just very old and confused by dementia."