The Legacy of Kitchens.

They say that the average person will spend 25 years of their lives sleeping. If that's the case, and it seems legit, I will spend at least 12 in a kitchen. Maybe not all of those years in my own but in someone's. Some of my most favorite memories take place in kitchens.

My mom cooking up dinner and turning to Brandy and me at the table where we were drinking too much soda and saying, "so girls, what's the drama?" with her hand on her hip. Never knowing at the time that we would cherish those moments (and the delicious hamburger helper that she was whipping up).

Cleaning up after a huge Thanksgiving meal with my aunt and my cousins while the men watch the TV. Baritone voices talking from the living room while I laugh with my grandma that we are just alike when it comes to the order of our houses and we tease her for the 10 thousandth time about what we can or cannot put in the trash compactor.

Doing dishes at the cabin with Aunt Diane when all the other kids had left to play. I don't remember what we talked about but she always made what I said important just by listening.

My friend Erika who can create a dish out of thin air and make it look like a breeze-commiserating and talking with her while she took over my kitchen.

Baking bread, making food, humming, singing, crying, cleaning, talking, laughing....all because of an oven.

Kitchens speak a feminine language that a man could never understand. And it is a legacy that you rob your daughters of if you don't let them sit and open cans and cut onions while you cook. They won't know how it feels to knead bread or lick the chocolate chip cookie bowl. They won't see the value of sitting in the oven warmed room and just simply being. They won't remember you as someone who turned around with a wooden spoon in her hand, shirt covered in flour. They won't have a memory of you elbows deep in boiling water washing greasy dishes and teaching them about life without saying a word.

They might not become the kind of women that know to set the table-or see the importance of eating at it. And they might not become the kind of young ladies that instead of watching MTV all afternoon will sit for hours on bar stools talking about everything and nothing and baking cup cakes.

Let the girls in your life laugh. Do the dishes with them. Sing too loud with them. Listen to them. Show them that no matter where they end up in life that where there is a kitchen there can be family, warmth, friendship and love.

I know that in my life, it has always made all the difference.