The Quiet Week That Wasn't Quiet

The window screens have been sitting in the basement since October. Every year I walk past them in April and think, I should really do those, and then I don't. This year they went in June 1st, which honestly might be a personal record.

I logged it as "Install window screens for summer" in epBode and then immediately felt like a functional person for about six minutes before remembering I also needed to deal with the air filters.

We'd had a stuffy few days inside and I couldn't figure out why. Then I pulled the filter in the main hallway and, yeah. That answered it. I don't know what I expected. The filters got logged as an expense on May 29th — $32 for the whole house — and I marked the replacement done, which means I can stop second-guessing whether I actually did it or just thought about doing it. That's most of what the app does for me, honestly. It's the difference between "I think I changed those in the spring" and "I changed those on June 2nd."

Air quality is one of those things I try not to let slide. Eli's sensory sensitivities include smell and airflow in ways that are hard to predict but very obvious in hindsight, usually when he's already uncomfortable and I'm trying to figure out why. Clean filters aren't a cure for anything, but stuffy air in his room is a variable I can actually control. So I control it.

The other thing that got my attention this week was the door alarm in the sensory room. It chirped on the morning of May 31st — that low-battery warning that sounds vaguely like a smoke detector having an existential crisis. I'd actually added a task the same day to test it, so when it chirped and woke me up before the kids did, I got to mark "Test door alarm batteries in sensory room" complete by 7:15am. Not how I wanted to spend my Saturday, but fine.

Wandering is something we think about. Eli has never actually gotten out at night, but the alarm on that door is part of why. We test it monthly. I set a recurring task so I don't have to remember to remember it. That's the whole system in one sentence, really.

The weighted blanket also showed up this week. The replacement one arrived May 30th — I'd ordered it after the old one finally gave up its seams — and I got to close out "Replace frayed weighted blanket in sensory room" in the app. Eli noticed it immediately and spent about forty minutes in there that afternoon without asking for anything. That's a good afternoon.

June is here. Screens are in. Filters are clean. The blanket is new. I'll take it.