“Jamie! What are you doing with my scissors?” Trixie gasped at the sight of her four-year-old son, who was in the act of putting the kitchen scissors back into the drawer where they belonged. She dropped the basket of clean laundry in her arms and covered the short distance to her son. Jamie knew very well that the scissors were off-limits to him.

“You were sound asleep when I checked on you fifteen minutes ago. What have you been up to with the scissors?”

“Well, Katie gotted some chewing gum stuck in her hair and she was crying, so I told her I’d fix it.” Jamie’s green eyes were wide and earnest. “But I couldn’t get it out and she started crying again. So I bemembered how you had to cut gum out of my hair one time and I got the scissors. I tried to find you but I didn’t know where you were,” he ended virtuously.

“I was cleaning the bathroom.” Trixie frowned at him. “Where is Katie now?”

“She’s still on her bed—I didn’t let her get up. But she’s not crying now.”

Trixie was already on her way back to her daughter’s bedroom, Jamie right behind her. Almost two-year-old Katie sat on her toddler bed, sucking her thumb and rubbing the edge of her ragged blanket against her cheek. She held out her arms to her mother.

“Up, get up now?” she asked hopefully.

Trixie went to the bed and picked up the little girl, inspecting her hair. Just above her left ear a large, ragged chunk of hair was missing. She spotted several wispy curls of Katie’s red hair in the bed as well. One of them had a piece of well-chewed gum stuck to it. She wondered where the chewing gum had come from. Jamie had been at preschool that morning...

“I know her hair’s crooked now, Mama,” Jamie’s lip quivered. “I was trying to help.”

Trixie sighed. Mentally, she counted to ten. “I know you were, Jamie. But you don’t use scissors unless a grown-up is with you. And you don’t cut anyone’s hair.” She smoothed her daughter’s hair with her free hand. “Let’s go into the bathroom. I might be able to even it up.”

In the bathroom, Trixie reached up on the top shelf of the closet for Jim’s haircutting scissors. Her husband often tried to defer a haircut for a couple of weeks by trimming the hair around his ears. Jim’s hair had enough curl that any uneven-ness wasn’t too noticeable, and she hoped Katie’s hair would be equally cooperative.

“First, do you need to go potty?” she asked her daughter.

Katie shook her head vigorously. “No potty. No.” Trixie was torn over whether to try to insist or just to go ahead with the haircut. She felt the back of Katie’s pull-up. It had the gel texture of wetness. Might as well go ahead with the haircut.

“Now, sit still, Katie. She positioned the toddler on the vanity counter, next to the sink. “Jamie, you can sit on the toilet. Don’t move. Stay right there.” She put the lid down and Jamie obediently sat down, watching her every move.

A few snips later, she stood back and looked. Both sides of Katie’s hair looked roughly the same—but the key word was rough.

“Mama, it still looks crooked,” Jamie said, with all the helpfulness a four-year-old could muster.

Brushing all of the cut hair into the wastebasket, Trixie lifted her daughter and set her down on the floor before stowing the scissors away again. “Yes, I know. Katie’s going to be getting her first visit to the hairdresser soon.” She sighed again, for what felt like the tenth time in the past fifteen minutes.

Jamie studied his sister’s hair, his forehead puckered in concentration. “Maybe they can make it straight.”