I learned from my mama how to host a meal. When I was growing up, my mom opened her home for showers, birthday parties, Christmas Eve dinners, graduation parties. You name it, she did it. She even hosted my wedding reception in the middle of COVID and you never would have known the world was shut down. 

And you’d better believe that I was enlisted to help her execute every party she had growing up; whether it was folding cloth napkins and setting the table for Christmas Eve, or setting up tables and chairs for a pig-pickin’, or setting up decorations for a theme party– I was there. And I learned a lot.

‘If the sun is not awake, then you aren’t allowed to play yet.’ That’s the rule in our house for our three year old. A few months back, we were going through a phase where she would wake up in the middle of the night and wander the house– usually hiding somewhere so that when we figured out she was out of bed, we would have to search to find her before settling her again. Once she realized that didn’t work, she started coming to our bed every night, which also grew old fast. 

That was when we taught her that when the sun goes down, we go to sleep, and when it rises again we can start a new day of playing. But if she wakes and the sun isn’t up yet, she has to try to go back to sleep.