art and things

The Teddy catcher…

The best thing about cereals (if you choose this as a breakfast option) is that you get free toys! That’s right, the people who make cereals actually put toys inside and you don’t have to pay for them – they come TOTALLY FREE with the cereal! Free cereal toys are the reason that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

When me and Teddy are allowed to decide which cereals to buy in the supermarket we actually choose the ones that come with the best toy. We keep this a secret because the cereal people would probably be very upset if they knew we were only buying their cereal for the free toy.  We don’t even tell Otter Keeper any more because it seems to annoy him too. He will start to talk about old packets of cereals not being eaten and stuff like that and it can get quite boring to be honest.

Anyway every now and then a cereal toy comes along that is much better than any other cereal toy that has come before it, and unfortunately with the way cereal toys work, this can cause a huge problem. The problem comes from the fact that clearly once you know about an amazing toy (a wonderful yellow Frisbee in this case) you obviously need to play with it as soon as possible, yet the only way to get to a cereal toy… is through the cereal.

Me and Teddy tried many ways to get through cereal faster but it’s quite hard, multiple breakfast times were not allowed and giving cereal away to the postman was also frowned upon.  One morning Teddy (in sheer desperation as he REALLY wants the Frisbee) even decided to help the cause by requesting to have 8 helpings of cereal in one go! Otter Keeper put a stop to this and told me off when I was helping him pour it into his bowl – as you can imagine I did point out that this wasn’t my idea and I was only helping a friend.

Eventually we felt enough was enough and made a plan to extract the Frisbee whilst Otter Keeper was at work. Part of the plan was to put all the cereal back into the boxes afterwards so Otter Keeper wouldn’t know anything about it. He has enough to think about at the moment because the light bulb in the hallway stopped working this week so he doesn’t need any more stress.

Sadly our plan then went wrong. Firstly there was no Frisbee in any of the packets, just another ball and a bike reflector and we already have these. Secondly repackaging the cereal was harder than it looked (the plastic bags bulge out and won’t fit back in the boxes)  me and Teddy know bad design when we see it so we decided to write a letter to the cereal people to explain the problem. However writing letters is also quite hard and Teddy suggested at this point we do some sofa bouncing. This all ended up with part of the plan not getting finished (the bit where we put the cereal back in its packets)

This was unfortunate because when Otter Keeper got home he was quite cross and we had to put all the cereal into special containers to keep it fresh. This was actually quite a fun game (but we didn’t tell Otter Keeper that). I made Teddy say sorry lots and I think everything is OK now. I still haven’t got my Frisbee and this makes me a little sad. However, I’m going to write that letter to the cereal people suggesting they improve their packaging and the plan is to ask them for the yellow Frisbee in return for my advice. I think that plan will work, wish me luck.

a dog eating cake … designed for a birthday card!

from my otter website www.iamotter.co.uk

“Today I want to tell you about baths. The reason for this is that baths are fantastic! Not all people have baths (some have showers), so I should quickly explain what a bath is. Me and Teddy find a good way to understand baths is to think of them like a small swimming pool, or a large sink. If you need any more help you could go to your local DIY store and ask them to explain how baths work (Otter Keeper had to ask about different types of paint for the shed the other week and the man was very helpful – we liked him)

Bathtimes are not an everyday thing (like dinnertime or brushing your teeth) – but you do often have more than one a week. Sometimes if you get dirty you HAVE to have a bath (even if you’ve only just had one). Me and Teddy get dirty quite a bit… but as I point out to Otter Keeper, me and Teddy are much closer to the ground than he is… so staying clean is much more of a challenge for us.

Like most fun things, baths do have rules. Like don’t get soap in your eyes or don’t splash too much water out of the bath (bath water should stay in the bath where it belongs and not be splashed over the side – Otter Keeper is very strict on this rule)

One of the most annoying rules is bubble bath limits. Yes that’s right, Otter Keeper actually puts a limit on the amount of bubble bath allowed in any one bath and unfortunately this has a direct impact on mine and Teddy’s bubble making efforts. We used to play a particularly good game called ‘bubble factory’ where me and Teddy would produce bubbles .. but with Otter Keeper actively cutting our supply chain, this game now has its limitations.

But anyway, this isn’t as bad as it sounds, as there are so many other things to do in the bath, like play with bath toys. Bath toys are a special type of toy that you’re only really are meant to play with whilst in the bath (Otter Keeper’s mobile phone is NOT a bath toy .. but that’s another story – it was Teddy’s fault and we don’t talk about it)

Bath toys are great and help maximise bathtime fun. Me and Teddy have been trying to work out the best ratio of bath toys to have in the bath at any one time – it’s possible to have too many you see. If anyone wants to know, the facts are that for every 1 Otter in a bath there should be exactly 34.5 bath toys. You can use this as a starting point to improve your own bath space to toy ratio, we hope it helps

I had better go now. yesterday me and Teddy noticed the ‘bath butter’.. we have an important toast experiment we need to try.

from my otter website www.iamotter.co.uk

from my otter website www.iamotter.co.uk

Quick, go there and sign up for the otter mailing list!!!! .. and like otter on facebook

And for the rest of the day you can do whatever you like…

thanks!

This is from My Otter blog here

http://www.iamotter.co.uk

“Unless you’ve been very busy recently or been watching something really good on TV, you’ll probably know it’s Christmas day tomorrow. This is obviously the best news ever and it means Santa is coming tonight. You probably also know that me and Teddy have been trying to meet Santa for several years now.

For a moment the other day we actually thought we had met Santa. We got taken to the shopping place and all of a sudden there he was. He was sitting at the bit where they usually have the fountain (I love the fountain) giving presents to children. But then Otter Keeper said this wasn’t the real Santa!!!…. and this was really just about the most disappointing thing that has ever happened to me and Teddy.

It’s now even more important that me and teddy meet the real Santa so that we can inform him about the impostor at the shopping centre. People shouldn’t pretend to be other people! Otter keeper says it’s OK sometimes, like if you’re an actor on TV.  But I think even they should try to refrain from pretending as it can just confuse people.

So this year out of urgent necessity we’ve come up with a really clever and well thought out plan to rendezvous with Santa. It’s a great plan …and it was all my idea. I’m very clever. We would tell you what it is but it’s got to be secret…and you might tell Santa….”

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !!!
(lots of love – Otter,Teddy and Otter Keeper) XXXX

This is …. I don’t know

One of the things I am best at is definitely colouring in. I know this because Otter Keeper is always really impressed whenever I show him anything I’ve done. Colouring in is like reading, it can be REALLY hard, but the more you practice the better you get. Me and Teddy try to aim for a minimum of 2 to 3 hours of colouring in each day. When I’m bigger I might be a professional “colourer in”, then I’d get to colour really important things like maps… or adverts.

Anyway the other day something happened that had never happened before. We were busy colouring a page from our favourite colouring book… it was quite a complex picture (Teddy couldn’t help and was just watching) when all of a sudden we ran out of colours! We had actually used them all! Someone who isn’t very experienced at colouring in would probably give up and get quite frustrated at this point. But instead, I had the best idea ever! Me and Teddy would just invent a new colour.

We ran the idea by Otter Keeper (we like to do this, as sometimes he has been known to give useful advice) but NOT today. He said it was ‘impossible to invent a new colour Otter’ as they had already all been invented. How silly of him, that’s probably what they said to the person who invented fluorescent highlighters before they existed. Fluorescent colours are magic - even Otter Keeper can’t explain them and he can explain almost anything.

We started off with our paints and mixed the red with the blue, this gave us purple which was a great start. We then mixed in some yellow which made a brownish type of colour which was also very promising. Me and Teddy both felt this brown was a really good brown. We tried mixing more colours and the brown changed to a slightly different brown. We realised we were really quite good at making browns.

After a long time mixing we got a bit bored of making browns. It was then that Teddy cleverly suggested we needed to “think outside of the box”. This is what Otter Keeper says sometimes when he’s trying to think of a solution to a difficult problem (It’s also a good thing to say if you’re making a secret den inside a cardboard box and get stuck thinking what to do next).

After a while of thinking outside of the box we realised it didn’t really help. However seeing as we’d been thinking about boxes we decided to leave the new colour till another day and transfer our efforts into making a spaceship out of an old shoebox . Otter Keeper gave it to us last week and me and Teddy have been wondering what to do with it for a while.  If you’re having trouble mixing a new colour, making a spaceship is a particularly good thing to do instead.

I’ll probably be tied up with my spaceship project for a while now. Teddy says he will try and find time to continue work on our new colour next week (I think he feels a bit guilty because he made several bad decisions during the mixing process - technically it’s mostly his fault we didn’t discover a new colour).

This week we watched a programme about a man that set himself a challenge to do a really long walk in the Antartic. The man got very cold because there was LOTS of snow (this is probably because someone had left a very big freezer door open and let all the snow escape (freezers are where snow comes from). But anyway me and Teddy decided we wanted to do a challenge and we had an exellent idea for what we would challenge… Bedtime! Me and Teddy are going to stay up ALL NIGHT.

Staying up all night is apparently really hard. Otter Keeper explained to me that in his opinion Otters (and Teddy’s) aren’t really designed to stay up all night. I politely pointed out to Otter Keeper that with the right training anything is possible. He laughed (he sometimes does this when i’m right about things)

What follows is a step by step account (the highs and the lows) of mine and Teddy’s epic journey.

6.31 We’re making preparations and gathering the last of the supplies. We are however missing a wafer bar. Teddy says he hasn’t eaten it but I’m not so sure. I don’t know if Teddy appreciates the magnitude of what we are about to do. He had better start taking this seriously.

8.30 We are now approaching usual bedtime. Everything is going well, both me and Teddy are in high spirits.

9.00 Otter Keeper says it’s now half an hour past our bedtime. Our training and preperation must be paying off because everything feels normal (it’s just been going on a bit longer than usual?)

9.38 Teddy says he’s starting to feel tired. I’ve given him some juice and now he’s wide awake.

10.04 It’s getting really quite late. Otter Keeper has been explaining to us just how long the nightime is. Teddy is finding it hard to deal with.

10.45 After refusing the challenge himself Otter Keeper has now gone to bed. The true nature of the task at hand is now sinking in. Otter Keeper has let us keep the light on which was kind of him – we miss him quite a lot already actually.

11.03 Teddy wants to go to sleep….. I’ve made him eat a wafer bar…

11.15 It’s very quiet here in the living room at this time, me and Teddy have been talking about how we are probably the first Otter or Teddy to have ever been up this late before. That is quite a special feeling. It feels good to be doing something important (like the man did on TV).

11.20 Teddy is having problems .. he’s being grumpy and keeps mumbling about going to to bed. I’m singing to him to keep up moral.

11.21 Feeding Teddy wafer bars as fast as possible, this makes it harder for him to talk about going to bed.

11.22 I’ve given Teddy the blanket to keep him warm. We’re both thinking about Otter Keeper lots.

11.25 It appears Teddy is asleep.

11.26 It’s very hard to stay awake.

11.28 I think it’s almost morning…it can’t be much longer now.

11.29 I’ve never noticed how soft Teddy is when you lay on… him …..