Mulligan

I've always thought it would be awesome to foster baby animals. I mean, kitties and puppies... what could be better?

Dave finally agreed to let us (partially due to a Google Slide presentation from Kate, and partially due to him becoming beat down being the only one who didn't want to).

We signed up to be fosters, and on Friday, July 10 while Luke was getting x-rays to get his cast changed out for a splint, I got an email looking for foster families for a few groups of kittens.

I replied that we were free, and we were matched with one little boy. When they first took him out to show me him, I thought, "Yikes! What is THAT?"

Instead of the cuddly kitty I was expecting, what was there was a really beat up 4-week-old kitten with matted fur and an eye infection. He looked rough.

I brought him home and everyone oohed and ahhed about how cute he was, but he wasn't.

I gave him a bath, which helped slightly. We called him Scrappy. After a few days of medicine, eye drops, and regular feedings, he started to look more like a cute little kitten. 

He figured out his litter box the first day (after peeing once on Dave), got used to car rides to and from the cottage, and bonded with Riley. They have an agreement that he can bite her tail or legs and jump on her face, and Riley walks away when she's had too much.

Dave told us we could keep him. The kids and I were actually okay with fostering and returning, but he said, "We're going to have to get a cat eventually. This one seems good." Such passion, that guy.

Since we were given permission to do so, we fell in love. We changed his name to Hercules Mulligan, a spy in the Hamilton musical, and call him Mulligan.

Oops

On Father's Day, Luke asked the kids to tube with him on our big tube called the Saturn 3. Luke doesn't like to tube, but he agreed to. The lake was busy, but they were all having fun. Suddenly we hit a bump and everyone fell off.

Luke was crying that his finger hurt. It didn't look too bad, though, so we had dinner and went home for the night. When Luke showed me his finger that night, I thought, "Uhhh, that looks a bit like mine did when I broke it in November."

The next day we went and had it x-rayed.

It was REALLY broken. Because it went into his growth plate, he had to be casted up to his elbow. I couldn't believe it.

Luke had that cast on for the last three weeks, and he was pretty tough about it. At first he couldn't swim at all, but near the end, we let him swim with a giant silicon bag over his arm.

Today they switched him to a waterproof, much smaller splint.