it seemed like a good idea

earlier in the summer, larry was painting the house of our neighbors\friends and they offered to let us have their basketball hoop. well the summer has come and gone and we didn't do much about collecting said hoop. so last weekend when brendan and a couple of his buddies were standing around outside without much to do i told larry we should go get the hoop. "it'll entertain them for hours" i told him. he was a little reluctant, didn't want to "bug" but made the call anyway and promptly went down to retrieve it. the boys and girls in the neighborhood "gang" were very stoked at the idea and helped larry get it set up. all was well and everyone was having a ton of fun until.......

brendan caught the ball with his mouth knocking out his half fake tooth again for the second time in less than 6 months. this tooth has been SUCH a pain - and i'm not just talking physically. it got knocked out for the first time in 3rd grade before it was even all the way in. his baby tooth had barely been gone. i remember thinking at the time, why couldn't this have happened 2 months ago and then we wouldn't have to even worry about it?? why must we destroy our permanent tooth when it's just barely scratched the surface?? so from that day forward he has had a partial fake tooth. and this is the 3rd time it has gotten knocked out. except for the initial impact, the tooth doesn't hurt when it comes out. until this time. apparently 4 times is the magic number. this time it really hurt and the dentist had to put some special medicine on the nerve to try and "calm it down". which also meant that he couldn't fix the tooth all the way. so poor brendan is stuck with just a little stub until the end of the month when the dentist will build up the tooth to normal size. and he informed us that the earliest he will be eligible for a cap or crown is around 18. so we decided that it would be fun to have a running bet as to how many times the tooth will need to replaced before that time. my personal guess is 12 more for a total of 16 knockouts. and we are getting him a mouthguard for all sports. no sense in tempting the fates where this little puppy is concerned.