My almost 13-year-old daughter stands a good 4 inches taller than me now - no great feat, since I'm 4-11 on a good day, but still.

She got her hair trimmed this last weekend, finally agreeing that perhaps the Jan Brady wasn't the look she wanted, and ended up allowing our long suffering stylist to cut chin length layers that taper to the full length in the front. As we were leaving the salon, the stylist mentioned that she could use a straightener to get a smooth, polished look.

Now, I have a straightener. And I can only successfully straighten about 1/4 of my hair before I get bored or lazy or make the ends go crazy or burn myself. My daughter knows this. She's seen the fallout before. She's smelled the singed hair before. She's on to me.

When I ambushed her in the bathroom a few nights ago, wielding the straightener and wanting to show her how it worked, she cringed away from me.

I demonstrated on my own hair first. "Look, it gets all smooth and shiny, like Barbie Hair!" I told her.

She scoffed at me. "Like I want synthetic-looking plastic hair that smells burned, Mom."

I talked her into letting me try it. I did one or two small sections, and didn't scorch anything. The next section, I decided to show her how she could introduce a bit of wave by slowly rolling the straighter over as you make you way down the strand of hair.

Except, you know, I turned it the wrong way, and ended up giving her a nice crimp right at the level of her eyebrow. By the time I released the hair from my smoking hot torture device, she was hooting with laughter and mocking my skills.

We laughed for a good five minutes.