I AM OTTER

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.

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.