God bless the moon, and God bless me.

Did you see the lunar eclipse?

We had the clearest skies and were able to watch the whole thing through our kitchen window.

Tejan is studying the moon in school, so it was especially fun to watch with him - and explain the whole thing to him. He kept saying "Auntie Cathy! Lunar eclipse! Awesome!"

Way more fun than the big solar eclipse I remember from elementary school... how fun is an event that all your teachers build up for weeks, but then tell you not to look at? I remember making some sort of box with a pin hole that we could look through. But guess what? All you could see was a pin hole. Not very exciting. And the prospect of burning my retinas to smithereens should I rebelliously take a peek at the heavenly event was terrifying and thrilling at the same time. Really, it was almost more than my immature little grade-school self could handle. No - I'll take my lunar eclipse over the silly solar event any day.

It sort of makes you stop and consider the hugeness of it all, doesn't it? How amazing is it that in all that space out there, every once in awhile the earth gets in the way of the moon's sunlight? Can you imagine all the little moon-people lying out on the beach, shivering while they wait for the sun to come out from behind the earth? Such a bummer for them, the whole lunar eclipse thing. We're not talking about a little cloud blocking the sun. It's the whole freaking earth. You might as well pack up the cooler and go home when the sun goes behind the earth, because it's going to be awhile before you see the big ball of fire again. Like, hours.

In a completely unrelated topic, Savannah went to the doctor yesterday. I scheduled her appointment a month or so ago, thinking that Tejan would be gone and I would be able to manage a doctor's appointment for one of my own kids. I scheduled it because the poor girl has had warts on her hands for years. Big, scaly, cracky, bumpishly grotesque warts. At least 15 of them. On her hands, right where they're impossible to hide. We went through this a couple of years ago with Ethan, and when I took him to the doctor he essentially told me there was nothing they could do. So I put off taking Savannah because I figured I'd get the same answer. Finally though, I realized the horror she must have felt at being a fifth-grade girl with these terrible, knobby warty hands. So I made an appointment for a full physical and figured I'd slip in my wart question, hoping for some miraculous cure.

So after rushing around, picking all the kids up from school and hurrying home to get the boys dropped off, she and I found ourselves in the waiting room at our beloved pediatrician's office. I asked to see her warts again, just so I'd know where they were when I showed the doctor. And guess what? They're gone.

Totally, utterly, completely gone.

The thing is, we're not talking about little tiny bumps here. One whole finger was so bulgy and cracked it looked like some sort of alien brain attached to her cuticle. It was a huge, sore wart for at least two years.

Gone.

Not a trace.

So while it was good that she got her check-up and all her booster shots, I never had to ask about the warts.

I can't explain it. They were there a month ago. They've been there for years.

I think it's just a little gift from God. Because if you've tried to treat a child for warts, you know it's next to impossible to get rid of them - unless you're one who's exceptionally good at putting Compound W on them morning and night for three months solid. And who doesn't mind the screaming and crying because 'it stings!' No - we've never managed to get rid of warts that way...

So I'll take my miraculous wart healing. And I'll revel in the fact that the God who aligns the planets and the moon and stars also cares about my daughter's warty fingers.

Because that's a miracle.