of teeth and skateboards....

For the record, the two don't mix. Poor Dan had a rough 24 hours.

On Weds, we colored a new blond stripe for him. It was beautiful, the full length of his hair, about 3" across on the right side of his part. Just what he wanted.

Thursday, he was invited to go swimming at a friend's indoor pool. I never even thought about his new hair color. You know where this is going, right? He swam for only about an hour, in water that reached to just below his jawline. Had a great time, then we headed to the farm to visit Scotty.

After we'd been there a couple of hours, I noticed Dan's hair. The bottom 6" was aqua green. Okay, I thought, I can re-do the color, I have some color solution left. Then I noticed it looked tangled and matted. Maybe he got something in his hair? I rinsed it out for him, and combed it. Now it looked like someone left it in the crimping iron too long. He had fried green hair.

I made a frantic call to Crystal to report a hair emergency, and got her voicemail. When she called back, she confirmed what I already knew. I'd need to cut off the fried green hair. She explained how to layer it so it would fall nicely and said if we really wanted blond to the ends, I could wait a day and color the underlayer. Thank goodness we hadn't colored all his hair or he'd have needed a radically new haircut!

I trimmed Dan's hair Thursday night, and it looks pretty good. Thankfully, the waterline was just below his jawline and the layering Crystal recommended has it framing his face nicely. We left it his natural brown below, because right now Dan is so done with hair coloring! The hair I trimmed off has the texture of nylon Barbie doll hair. Really. (Note to self -- no swimming for at least 3 days after a hair color.)

A little while later, Scotty & Dan were riding together on Scotty's electric dirt bike - Scotty driving, Dan behind. On the driveway, they wrecked the bike. Dan told me he landed on Scotty, which begs the question 'how did he end up with several scrapes and bruises the length of his left leg?' One of the rare days he wasn't wearing jeans -- he still had his swim trunks on from his earlier brush with 300 proof chlorine.

Scotty came home with us that night. The boys stayed up late, and were up early. About 9:30 Friday morning, as I was checking my email before heading out to buy tires, Dan came up behind me and said "I lost a tooth."

"Really -- was it that dangly tooth up top?"

As I swiveled around in the chair, I see Dan bleeding from his mouth, holding the other top incisor in his hand (it was only the tiniest bit loose). "No, it was the other one" he manages to say before lunging towards me for a teary hug. I got him spun around and headed for the sink/fridge area. Darn, no popsicles. I put a bag of frozen peas on his mouth and we head for the sink, as I grab a small glass and salt. I mixed up some salt water and had him swish it around until the bleeding stopped. Assessed the damage -- split, swollen bottom lip; missing top tooth left a gaping hole; other tooth dangling even more precariously. Okay, I guess we're having ice cream for lunch after we get new tires on the car.

How, you may ask, did Dan knock out his front tooth? Let's call it a physics lesson. He and Scotty were using the skateboard as a lever to raise the back of the couch. On their first attempt, the skateboard flew up and smacked Dan in the mouth. By the time I'd cleaned Dan up, Scotty had managed to raise the couch off the floor and was standing on the other end of the skateboard. A bit later Dan explained that during his injury, they were actually trying to launch a bottle of root beer. In the house. With a skateboard.

Friday afternoon talking with friends, Dan said it hurt for about 5 seconds. Scotty said it seemed Dan was upset for longer than that. Dan agreed that maybe it had been more like 12 seconds.

He also agreed it's pretty scary when a skateboard flies up and hits you in the face.

Yeah, he is going to look so good by next week.....

Saturday morning update: The dangling tooth fell out overnight, and the new tooth is already visible.