Either I picked the wrong day to cut Nigel’s hair, or he picked the wrong day to want to print out 29 pages of pi. That’s right – he found a website with a link to print out 29 pages’ worth of 3.14. As I was setting up the hair-cutting station in the kitchen (having prepared him verbally for two weeks), he came running into the room and in an uncharacteristic, excited tone said, “I’m printing out all of pi!”

In retrospect, I should have let him do it. It’s just that, on my reduced income with homeschooling him, I can’t afford to be buying ink cartridges every week. I ran into his room, shut off the printer, and canceled the print job while he screeched at me. Then I tried to explain to him about using up ink in the printer, and that he should check with me before printing out anything over five pages. He began smacking his forehead with the back of his hand and making angry growling noises.

I always talk about how I “pick my battles” with my kids, and how I weigh if something is worth an uproar or not. I’m thinking that perhaps 29 pages of ink was not worth it. I should have let him print out pi. However, I didn’t want to “change my mind” midstream, mid-uproar, and have Nigel think that if he screeched and growled and hit himself that he could get what he wanted in the future. So finally I got him to calm down by pointing out to him that if he printed out pi, there would be no more ink to print out his zoopraxiscope templates (Obsession of the Week).

Then I faced the formidable task of getting him to let me cut his hair. I really wish he could just let it grow long, but, out of boredom during Spring Break, he began pulling it out again (although not eating it, much to my relief), so I told him it had to be cut. Since his first haircut at the age of three, he has hated haircuts. He has an unrelenting fear that his ears will be cut, coupled with sensory issues that made him unable to bear the vibrating clippers. For many years we did not use clippers at all, only scissors. But that was before he started pulling out his hair, and at that point we needed to cut it as close as possible. Especially since we wanted to put off having to do it again for as long as we could. So now I use the clippers, after having him slowly get used to it, and he always puts earplugs in. I keep a set in the same box as the clippers so they’re always there.

Nigel used to shriek when I’d cut his hair, and for years I feared that Child Protective Services would come banging on my door. In fact, I’m surprised they never did. It’s one of those things about the early years that I am so glad to have behind us. Now when I cut Nigel’s hair, he certainly lets me know he doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t scream and thrash around. He lets me do it, although he lectures me each time not to cut his ears (I never have, so he’s not drawing on any past experience), and he constantly shrinks away from the clippers, making the job very difficult.

And this time, he was angry because I hadn’t let him print out his 29 pages of pi. He kept making sounds like a snorting horse as he sat in the seat while I cut his hair, forcefully saying, “Hey! Watch it!” every minute or so.  But he let me do it. I wasn’t sure at first if he would. He was resisting me as I tried to guide him to the chair in the kitchen and tie the plastic cape around his neck and sit him down. I could tell he was still mad at me.

But maybe Nigel has his own take on picking battles. Maybe somehow he sensed that a) this was something he knew was coming, b) I’d cut his hair many times before and it really wasn’t that big of a deal anymore, and c) making threats about not doing the cat litter if I don’t let him do what he wants to do never works, and he better just sit down and get this over with. He’s learned to save his big stands for the things that really matter to him. Like printing out two pages of instructions to make a neat invention instead of 29 pages of numbers. And not eating broccoli.