Hair

Earlier this evening, the learning opportunity that I had set up fell through. Then my backup plan fell through. I didn't have a second backup plan. This made an already troublesome assignment even more troublesome, so I called up my conveniently located mother to see if she had any of the brilliant ideas that she generally has.
Hesitation on the other side of the line... "Do you want to cut your brother's hair?"

So I ended up with a lesson in cutting boys' hair, which I had never done before, but will probably end up doing a lot more times in the future if I ever end up having sons.

This is a my brother. He is fourteen and a freshman at Timpview high school. He was very cooperative, although he could not resist sharing a handful of insights about just how frightening it is to have your older sister waving scissors around your ears.

So we sat him down and wrapped a towel around his neck to theoretically prevent the hair from getting all over his clothes. Then my mother got out the buzzer and the scissors and the comb and we set to work. We wanted a spray bottle to keep his hair wet, but we couldn't find one so we did without.

My mother showed me how to first take a section from the top of the head and cut it to the desired length, then use that section as a guide to know how long to cut the rest of the sections. She then let me try it, helping me when necessary, which was a lot of the time. My brother's hair is thick and wavy and utterly does not do what is told. I used the buzzer to clip the back of his head, then finished up the sides with the scissors. I evened the whole thing out, then she showed me how to make the neck, sideburns, and bangs look neat and straight.

When I was done, we looked at the finished product. My mother informed me that I should probably go do my blog while she fixed what I had done. I agreed this was probably the best course of action. In my defense, it really was my first time. I didn't even have that awkward experience as a child when I tried to cut my own hair. While the demonstration was infinitely useful, I still need a great deal of practice, which I think is true of most types of folk knowledge. You can be taught things, but a lot of the time, a big component of learning things is doing something and figuring it out for yourself.
He is probably laughing in the picture because he also thinks I didn't do a very good job.
Maybe when if I have sons, they will have hair that is easier to work with. Or I will marry someone rich enough to pay for professional haircuts on three-year-olds. That would be nice.