Inspired by karpenglish at The Daily Meow’s Year in Pictures post. THANKS.

I’m borrowing this Five Senses on a Sunday format from the Musing Millennial.

SIGHT: I’m curled up in my bed, as I do most nights after dinner. I can see the open closet and the almost full hamper. Although often a reminder of all the things that need to get done, I’m choosing to reframe it as I’m fortunate to have enough to not worry about clean clothes for tomorrow.

TASTE: I try not to snack too much after 7pm or so knowing it makes it more difficult to fall asleep. But the open bag of Reese’s PB Cups was calling my name. For me, chocolate and peanut butter is only ever second to peanut butter and banana.

HEAR: I hear mostly nothing. This is a far cry from just 20 minutes ago when the youngest was singing his Sunday I don’t wanna song while being wrestled into bed. But always present after the sun has left the sky, is the neighborhood’s resident owl with his night who-who-whooos. I rarely notice his calls until I’m struggling to sleep myself.

FEEL: Anyone who knows me has heard me go on and on about my absolute favorite blanket in the world. If you’re lucky enough to have received a gift from me over the past 4 or 5 years, chances are you have gotten one, too. But my Piper Moon love you adult swaddle blankey [this particular pattern is currently discontinued] is my most prized cuddle possession—unless you count my kids. It’s cool to the touch but warms up with your body heat. It’s not weighted but has a weightiness to it that I find so comforting. It is soft and smooth and thin and just pure perfection while swaddling my lower half.

SMELL: The scent of my daughter’s freshly washed hair keeps wafting over as she sits beside me. There is something about clean kids that I can devour even more than that fresh baby smell we all know and love. Maybe it is because my kids are nearly always in need of a good scrub down, so when it finally happens, I love to just drink in the scent of them.

I am writing for the 18th annual Slice of Life challenge presented by Two Writing Teachers.

Some weeks are heavy. This was one of them. It’s the only word I can use to describe it.

This morning, my husband pulled our youngest out of bed and carried him to our room to get dressed. As the baby of the family, we still help him with these tasks. It’s just kind of easier to do it this way than to wait and beg for him to do it himself…mostly because he’s a beast in the morning and I have no patience before coffee.

McKenna is nearly 10. She was supposed to have the larger of the two kids’ bedrooms with the bigger closet. But plans changed and the boys now share the bigger room. McKenna has the smallest room in the house with the tiniest closet. For a fashionista, this is problematic.

Does anyone else have one of those kids who just has to be busy all the time? Maybe they are always reading or riding a bike. Or maybe they have to have a little project going all the time. Maybe they spend their time doing little craft projects or watching TV or playing a game or just chatting your head off.

We had just finished two episodes of 1923, having stayed up much too late to watch. I had heard Theo making noises in his sleep on and off for the last couple hours and thought nothing of it.

That kid is a sleep talking, giggling, noise making chatterbox.

Borrowing this Day in Ten Cuts format from Chats From Chile. Thanks for the inspiration.

As a young (and naive) teacher, I assigned the leprechaun trap project. I didn’t know any better. I’m sorry. Now, as a mom of three, I dread this project every year. I swear that I will NEVER subject parents to this torture ever again. I’ve written about it several times over the years. In 2023 we didn’t have any school traps but my kids demanded to make them anyway. In 2022, one of my kids had a trap she needed to bring to school. This is when I realized my mistake and I apologized to all the parents of all the kids I ever taught.

She’s been riding a hand-me-down bike for the last couple years. At the end of the summer, I noticed it was time to upgrade to a bigger frame. I made a mental note of it and brushed it from my mind.