Drama King

I think he was just a bit young to appreciate some parts of the session; getting an inquisitive toddler to sit and listen to a story can be quite tricky. The Kid abandoned my lap to explore the rest of the room, and left me dutifully sat there, acting out actions for Rusty the Robot with the other kids. I let him get on with his travels for the most part, but had to intervene when he started to rifle through the pushchairs and bags left at the side of the room.

The group moved on to walking round the hall, acting like tigers, dogs, bossy mothers and the like (Why is it always mothers who are bossy?) which The Kid seemed quite good at until there was a man down situation; one baby fell over causing a pile up of M25 proportions.

Carnage was also caused when The Kid spied his mate J Man sitting happily at the side of the room and went over to give him a love. Just before he reached him, he slipped and head-butted him, causing J Man to bang the back of his head against the door he was sitting in front of.

Despite the petty theft, pile-ups and common assault, everyone concerned enjoyed the day. Although The Kid isn't old enough to appreciate the finer points of the exercise I can really see how it would help improve concentration, co-ordination and language skills as well as being lots of fun.

However the whole course of sessions (10 in all) have to be paid in advance along with a £10 signing up fee. This means an initial bill of £55 or two payments of £27 and £28 pounds.

The problem with that is a) it's a lot of money to shell out at once; b) if you had to miss a session for any reason you'd lose money and c) I was planning to alternate between that group and another play group nearby.

So- although I enjoyed Debutots, think it's really beneficial for babies and would thoroughly recommend it, I'm not going to be signing up for the full term. I'm just a bit disappointed that it's not possible to attend on a drop in basis.

There's always a chance they don't want my ASBO baby back there anyway!