The foot is healing quickly and well and I'm now two weeks overdue for my midwife appointment. I scheduled the appoinment a week late (due to travel), then canceled due to not being able to drive. Today's was canceled due to two women in labor at once... not a very likely given that the midwives only have a small handful of women each month, but that's OK. I feel great and the baby continues to squirm if I'm not walking around.

We took John to the zoo in Munich. I'd taken him to a zoo once before, in May, when he was 15 months old, and he really didn't get it. (I think he might have noticed the sea lions who were swimming immediately in front of him, but his reaction could also have been due to gas.) As he's grown, he's become more and more delighted with anything moving. He loves bees and giggles whenever he sees them (wait til his first sting!), anything in the backyard, butterflies, and, of course, dogs, cats, cows, etc. Munich claims to have the largest zoo in Europe and it certainly was impressive. John was beside himself with delight: whether in regard to ducks or bison, monkeys or lions, he thought it was great. When an animal would catch his eye (and, for the first two hours, it was a rare animal that didn't catch his eye), he would start bouncing, point, and say, "dadadadadada". In the petting zoo (we looked, didn't pet), John didn't know whether to be thrilled or scared when a cow mooed 6" from his face. John reacted by grinning from ear to ear while pushing back as far away from the cow as he could in his stroller.

The German word for "bite" sounds like the English "bison." I know German, but not well enough to tell John all the animal names in German. (And we're working on English, anyways!) A little boy overheard me telling John, "BISON. BISON." A minute later I heard him frantically asking his mom if he would get bitten. Oops.

There were a lot of kids at the zoo. That was a pretty rare sight!

Another note: they still know how to build really cool playgrounds in Europe! It appears German playground designers try to build things children will delight in. At the zoo, the playground had a sign warning that, "Parents are responsible for their children." (Novel thought.) The playground also had, among other things, a 30 foot high climbing structure. If it hadn't been totally swarmed, my brother and father would have climbed it themselves. There also was an American-style playground, labeled "For Handicapped People."