Happy New Year to Us

I suppose many of you can retell stories of New Year's Eve that hit one or two bullet points on your bucket list. Others might be able to describe the feeling of staying up past midnight to ring in a new year filled with newness and the possibility it inspires. Maybe some of you even caught a glimpse of the ball dropping as the clock struck 12.

I wouldn't know. I was asleep.

I'm sure many of you can also tell that tale. I don't see New Year's as much more than another day really, so I'm not exactly heartbroken that my 33-year-old self couldn't 't hack in 'till midnight. However, I felt a twinge of sadness as my husband and I were dozing off last night and trying to retell tales of New Year's Eve past to no avail. We couldn't even remember the last time we stayed up to see the new year arrive.

I texted my sister today to wish her a happy new year and to ask how they spent the evening. Out with friends, like most I suspect. I know I'm not the most social and conversational of all people, but mix that in with an autistic child, toss in an Ohio winter, and it's the perfect storm for cabin fever.

I told Brenner last night that I wished we had big, exciting plans for the holiday. Something that included me dressing up in more than sweats and my ever so sexy house slippers. Yeah, you know you're jealous. I laughed when he said "let's go out then!" It wasn't funny just because he was asking at 7 p.m. New Year's Eve with no babysitter in sight, but also because we probably wouldn't have even if we could. All dressed up (in sweats) and nowhere to go.

I've mentioned that Rowen is a shorts and t-shirt kind of guy. That means you will rarely catch a glimpse of this child outside all winter long. That's about 9 months in Ohio time. Can anyone say cabin fever? I don't blame him for not wanting to bundle up like Randy from A Christmas Story with arms flailing, but even on milder days he doesn't take kindly to the transition from shorts to pants. This equals out to a lot of days trying to stir up creativity to fight the urge to flip on the old tube... or flat screen as it is.

"Rowen, do you want to go _______?" You fill in the blank. The answer is no. Not that we still don't go out sometimes, we just know we have to handle a red-faced boy who doesn't want to be taken from him comfort zone.

So this is part of the reason we long for summer, and maybe someday a dream move down south that we've been plotting in our heads for years. Maybe someday. But for now, I need to get my creativity in motion and lure him away from watching (over and over) his favorite scenes from his favorite movies, a move he's made ever since I can remember. Rewind, play, rewind, play... rewind, play. I wish that when he hit play, it would make the literal jump to him climbing his tree or running the perimeter of the neighborhood as a train. At least we'd get something interesting happening (and maybe get some energy out!).

So happy new year to all of you. Here's to New Year's resolutions and a great start to what holds the promise of being another great year. I don't have a resolution myself (none that I will actually keep anyway), but I do have some wishes for a boy who could use a break from his struggles and the ability to play the day away rather than get lost in his frustration as well as his predictably safe world. For a boy who knows he's different, but wants the world to not see him as so. For a boy who needs to take his thumb off the rewind and play buttons because he doesn't need to see the train, again. Let's get this new year started.