Ca(s)t Week

In a week, our lives sure changed in a couple of interesting ways! Last Saturday, after having lunch with my wonderful friend Sam, her baby Brady, and her mom, I did a little shopping, meeting up with Brendan and the boys near PetSmart. I guess the "vibes" were in the air, and we ended up perusing the dozen or so adorable cats in the adoption area. We had been discussing the possibility of adopting a cat for quite a while now, but it never felt completely right. But recently my "caternal instincts" had been in overdrive, and the fact that it was our late Pumpkin's birthday may have had a little something to do with it, too.

Frankly, I was in the mood to adopt any of them. Even two or three! And while Nathan was initially hooked on an orange baby kitten named Nacho, we quickly zeroed in on a young, black-and-white tuxedo cat. A Kitten Rescue volunteer told me that he was a very friendly, curious cat--great with kids. We got to know him in the partitioned room, and he was immediately very tolerant of the boys and didn't seem afraid. Fifteen minutes later we were filling out the paperwork to adopt him.

Logan has been in our house a little over a week now, and we adore him. He made himself at home immediately. He sleeps for hours on our dining room chairs, walks all over Brendan's desk, tries to hop onto the counter tops, goes nuts every day at around 4 am, cuddles with us in bed, plays with shoe laces, tears laps up and down the stairs, stalks us around corners, and has just generally inserted a dash of character and spontaneity into our home. The phrase "Where is Logan?" has replaced "Do you have to go potty?" as the most commonly used utterance in our home.

So, just as we were getting used to having Logan in the home, something weird happened on Tuesday--something that you just don't see coming. It was almost time for Nathan to leave for afternoon baseball practice. As he was was climbing down from his bed, where he had been playing on his Kindle, his practice shirt caught on his bed rail, and he tumbled to the floor. He was in pain right away, pain that we thought would just subside. But by the time Brendan was home from coaching, I figured this was worth checking out, as he was still cradling his left arm. We went to urgent care, where he had some x-rays. According to the doctor, they didn't show an obvious break, so Nathan was sent home with a sling and told to take it easy for a week. But.........two days later, we got a call from a nurse at urgent care. Upon reviewing the x-rays, the radiologist thought there might be a break after all. The next day Nathan was seen by a pediatric orthopedic specialist in the Valley, who immediately told us that it was, in fact, broken near the elbow. After joking with Nathan that one option was to cut off his arm (no, I am completely not kidding--he actually did that), he let him choose his cast color, and before we knew it, baseball season had ended early. And handball season. And wrestle-with-your brother season. And shower season.

The cast has been on for two-and-a-half days now, and Nathan was excited to have a lot of family sign it today at our Mother's Day lunch. He's also looking forward to showing it off tomorrow at school. But I imagine in another week or two, the novelty will wear off before the cast has worn off. So, we'll be counting down the days until June 7th, when it will most likely be removed. And after that, Ca(s)t Week will be a memory. We'll move on to the end of school, Nathan's birthday, and lots of fun summer activities. It's nice that Logan is here to keep him company until then.