Happy Halloween!

The kids dressed up today and went trick-or-treating in a part of Potsdam where there's a much larger than normal ratio of houses that give out candy (trick or treating isn't really a thing here). Clara was a witch, and Oscar was the witch's cat:

Clara designed and made her candy bag on her own several weeks ago. She painted a piece of paper black, put on star stickers, and then rolled it into a cylinder. She made a bottom out of paper and tape, and then we helped her put a plastic bag on the inside to make it a bit more stable.

October 31 is a holiday in Brandenburg, so we went to Berlin to get Clara's birthday present (her first climbing shoes!), and on our way back we stopped at the swimming pool.

This summer Oscar got more serious about practicing his swimming style, and it's really paid off. Already during the summer he swam several lengths of a 25 meter deep pool, but we still weren't really comfortable with him being in deep water because when he gets tired he would start to paddle (and sink!).

About a month ago, we let Oscar try swimming a length in the 50 meter pool in Potsdam (I think for the first time). Unfortunately, he wasn't swimming so well, and the lifeguard came by and suggested he needs to spend a bit more time in the training pool. But last week we tried again, and on Saturday he swam the 50 meter length with two pauses. On Sunday, he swam with only one pause. And today, he swam the full length without any breaks! Since he could swim the 50 meters in lane 1 (next to the edge of the pool), he immediately wanted to try lane 2. But we convinced him to take a break in the warmer pool, and then he came back and swam lane 1 again. Oscar has always been a better diver than surface swimmer, and already this summer he could get a ring from about 150 cm depth. If he can learn to swim 200 meters in one go, and get a ring from 180 cm, then he might be able to get his Bronze certificate before he turns 7!

The other thing Oscar really wanted to do now that he could swim in the deep pool was jump off the diving board. So he did. This is something that Clara had been working up to for ages. She doesn't mind jumping from a 1.5 meter height (she did it in a lake and pools in Sweden this summer), but the wobbling of the diving board has always bothered her. Last week on Sunday (when Tanja was traveling), Clara suddenly walked the board and hopped in - easy as pie! She was really proud of herself, and I wasn't allowed to text or tell Tanja about it: Clara wanted to show her herself the next time we went swimming. So today, Clara got to finally show off for Mommy! She now just loves jumping off the board. And running the full length of it and running off. And doing small hops at the end and then jumping in. She also wanted to climb up the 3.8 meter platform to see what it's like today, but it was closed, and she didn't want to ask the lifeguards to open it just so she could see how high it is (but not jump).

Big kids!