•       use the card that has been turned over and place it face up at the appropriate place ( in the example given it is a four). The card that was originally at that spot is then returned to the discard pile, face up.
•       take the card at the top of the pile and place it in the appropriate position. If that place has already been filled by a card that is face up (1-7), the card is immediately placed on the discard pile.

During this morning's church service, dad and I noticed Biruk was staring intently into the congregation, unresponsive to our attempts to get his attention.

I asked him what he was looking at, and finally he answered, with eyes shining and a quiet voice laden with awe..."I see...I see...Mr. Rogers."

Sure enough, a few rows ahead and to the right, was an older gentleman in a button-down burnt-orange cardigan.  He didn't look much like Mr. Rogers to me (except for the sweater), but looking closer, I could see how a two-year-old might think so.  A thin older gentleman, with hair just-so, a certain set of the ears, and a softly pleasant facial expression.  Combined with the sweater, "just like" Mr. Rogers. 

Dad and Mom do live in Fred Roger's hometown (and his show was produced in Pittsburgh, not too far from where we lived before).  Once Biruk heard about this, whenever we walk down the street he grew up on, he has to "wave at Mr. Rogers house!".  We don't know exactly which house it is, so we just randomly pick one and wave at it.  Between the house and seeing the guy "live" on PBS, it's no surprise that Biruk assumed that the nice old guy in the sweater had to be the real Mr. Rogers.  I think I'll wait a few years before I break it to him that Mr. Rogers isn't actually our neighbor.  For now, he can go on believing that he's seen Mr. Rogers up close and personal, a distinction he shares with former President Bush and his wife.  What a lucky boy!

If you saw us today and thought "What kind of mother makes her toddler walk half-way around a huge lake in wet clothes and a stinky diaper?"...this would be my answer:

The kind of mother who feels terrible about the fact that her son's pants and boots are soaking wet and probably very cold.

The kind of mother who's son walked the first half of the lake dry and warm, and then disobeyed her and sat down in a stream at the exact mid-point of the hike so that she couldn't simply run him back to the car to change him.

The kind of mother who carefully dressed her children in warm clothes and boots suitable for mud stomping.  The kind of mother who made sure to put a whole bag of clean clothes and diapers in the back, for just such an occasion.  Only she couldn't get to her car when she needed it.

The kind of mother who never, ever properly gauges the amount of time it takes to walk nearly 3 miles with 3 boys who want to stop and look at every hole in the ground.

The kind of mother who was thinking about this because "What kind of mother...?" is a thought that often runs through her own mind, and a comment that she often sees and hears leveled at other women.  Being a mom means it is incredibly easy to look bad to others, very difficult to look good to others (since there are so many ideas of "good mothering"), and easier than I'd like to forget that other mothers also have whole lives that lead up to and include the one bad moment I may see. 

What kind of "What kind of mother....?" are you?

Next week comes what would have been the due date for the first baby I lost.  Six months ago I was thinking "Wow, I could be holding our new baby at the Thanksgiving table!  But with my history, it'll probably be closer to Christmas, darn it".  After that miscarriage, I forgot about it until I turned the calendar to November, and saw where I had written BABY!!!! in big block letters at the bottom of the page.  I scribbled it out.

The next time, I knew better.  Just after Josiah left for Ethiopia, I found out we were expecting again.  But I only marked the weeks on the calendar page I was looking at.  I knew the due date was around the boy's birthdays in May, but I tried not to think about that much. 

At 8 weeks I was spotting and cramping, but it went away and I decided to ignore it.  At 10 weeks, the midwives didn't hear a heartbeat.  I was super sick.  The last time I was that sick, I was pregnant with Asrat and also had stomach parasites at the same time.  Surely, being that sick meant the pregnancy was going well?  At 11 weeks I was spotting again and was sent for an ultrasound.  "There's no easy way to tell you this..." said the nurse, but I already knew.  After three kids, I know what a heartbeat sounds like and how very wrong the silence in that room was.  Not only was there no heartbeat, but there was no form of a baby either.  At that stage (and there was no question about the dates), there should have been.  One of my regrets from last time was not having had even a glimpse of my baby, even by fuzzy ultrasound picture, before I lost him.  This time I had the chance to see, only there was no baby there to see.  Only a mass, which after a miserable day at the hospital, a D&C, and various and sundry tests, it was solidly confirmed that what had been growing in my womb was a molar pregnancy.

This left me hanging in midair.  I couldn't crash, because there seems to be very little information about molar pregnancy, except that sometimes conception didn't happen but cells multiplied and grew in a wrong way, or sometimes conception did happen but growth was so immediately deformed that there was no possibility of a little heart ever beginning to beat, or sometimes in the midst of all the deformity there grew a little body that simply couldn't compete with the fast-growing molar cells.  Even so, that's all googled information, and who's to say what's true or not, or what happened in my case?  Was there ever a baby?  If there was, did it live and then die, or just never lift off the runway in the first place?   It's hard to fall apart when you don't know what you should be falling apart about. 

I couldn't feel relief either, or closure.  Molar pregnancy carries with it a risk of serious and long-term health problems, even cancerous growth.  So every week for a while, and then every month for a whole year, I will go to a lab and have my blood drawn and look at my three little children around me and remember that I'm there because the fourth left early and the very existence of the fifth is in question.

I guess, at least, I can grieve a dream smashed, and hope crushed.  That will have to do for now.

Thanks to LitFuse publishing for providing this wonderful book for review. 

Due to address change issues, I didn't get this book until after the official blog tour was over, but it did finally arrive, I read it eagerly, and I am so happy to let you know that Tricia Goyer, along with Mike Yorkey, have provided avid readers with yet another fabulous historical novel to enjoy.

The Swiss Courier is a well-researched and excellently written piece of historical fiction (with a little bit of romance) set in August of 1944.  Hitler's Third Reich is in full gear, having overrun some nations and threatening others, including Switzerland.  Young Swiss-American Gabi Mueller works for the American Office of Strategic Services, but she soon finds herself at the center of an important mission to rescue German physicist Joseph Engel, after his Jewish heritage is discoverd by the Nazi's.  And so, a pastor's daughter becomes a "courier", delivering a pivotal "package" safely into the hands of the Allies.  She finds herself wrestling with her own heart along the way, as she considers the excitingly employed men she works with and the humble farmer she left behind.  In her adventures, Gabi Mueller consistently finds that looks can be decieving, and that is one of the main themes of this novel, which provides our heroine with a few devastating blows and several happy surprises.

By itself, the story line of The Swiss Courier is thrilling and captivating.  It has great drama, suspense, and feeling.  The romance is down-to-earth, realistically rendered, and not at all cheap or tawdry (no torrid love scenes, thank God!).  But aside from the plot, this book gives the reader food for thought.  Gabi Mueller's father is a pastor, her family is staunchly Christian, as are many of the others resisting the Nazi's in this story.  Yet in many cases, successfully opposing evil requires violence on some level, and sometimes killing.  People who sought to rescue those being killed by Hitler's minions were often faced with two options, both requiring them to sin (lying vs. allowing someone to be arrested and probably killed, killing a Nazi soldier in order to save a person from death vs. not committing "murder" and thus allowing an innocent to be killed).  These seem like simple questions to those of us with the benefit of hindsight (6 million killed, there's no ethical dilemma, do whatever it takes to save them!), but it is important to remember that very few people at that time had any idea of the magnitude of Hitler's deadly operations, and sorting fact from rumor was difficult, especially when the facts were so horrendous that it's difficult to believe even now that humans could be capable of such evil.  This moral quandry has been an issue for Christianity since very early on, and is still an issue today: Can Christians involve themselves in politics to seek change for a nation?  Can Christians ever participate in violence for a greater good?  When it comes to sin, are there "greater" and "lesser" evils, and if there are, how does God view the act of committing a "lesser" evil to prevent a greater one?  The Swiss Courier does not seek to answer these questions on a deep theological level, but it does provide insight into the choices of some Christians facing one of the greatest evils in human history.

Readers will enjoy the pace of this novel, a few heart-stopping moments, and the faith and courage demonstrated by a simple young woman who's life has fallen under the dark shadow of Hitler's Third Reich.

Do check out the reviews on the blog tour and also listen to an interview with Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey, available HERE.