Hairspray

Nope, this isn't a review of the musical.
We were getting ready to run errands on Friday and I headed upstairs to corral Ava into the car. "Ava...." I called as I climbed the stairs. No reply from Ava but I heard the sound of her little feet running fast from our bathroom. Not a good sign. I rounded the corner to see her with brush in hand, apparently styling her hair. It looked really wet. She had that mischievous smile on her face. I ignored it. What was that smell? Lotion? Perfume? She'd been into something. "Come here, let me put a barrette in your hair. We need to go." I reached for her hair. It was absolutely stiff. Not wet....SATURATED with hair spray. She must've used the whole can of hairspray. I found out later that she had. There was no way I was getting a brush through that mess. It was solid. "Ava..." I started to reprimand her. And then the weirdest thing happened. The feel my baby's shellacked hair in my hand took me back to the 7th grade. It was the feel of my very own hair in 1989, Aussie Sprunched and Paul Mitchelled into stiff, brittle hair hell. I shook my head and returned to 2008. And then something even stranger happened. The words of my own mother, the very words that I had once rolled my eyes at, came from my mouth, "Honey, you really don't need to use so much hairspray."