What the New Year means to me

I’ve never been a New Year's person. The idea of an overhyped, overpriced night on the town wasn’t usually my idea of a good time. The best New Year's I’ve had were spent with close friends, at home with good food and perhaps an inappropriately competitive board game.

As chronically sleep-deprived parents, Dilip and I now have a better excuse than ever before to stay home (and hopefully fall asleep) well before midnight. That’s pretty much exactly what we planned to do to ring in 2013.

But I do think that this time of year is the perfect time to reflect on our past actions, celebrate our accomplishments and plan how to build an even better life in the future.

I’m so proud of how far Syona has come in the past year. She’s celebrated so many milestones — from finding a way to move around on her own to making new sounds. Her wins are my wins. And my biggest accomplishment is seeing her happy and content. I want to make sure that as a parent I give her as much as I can to continue propelling her forward and I know that will require a few things on my part in 2013.

So here are my resolutions and goals for 2013:

• Be more organized. We’re new to the special needs parenting world. It is a world that is filled with loads and loads of paperwork and expenses. I need to do a much better job of keeping that organized. It’s also a world that is filled with exponentially more stuff (toys, equipment, etc.) than I ever thought I would own and I am determined to find a way to wrangle it all in.
• Take care of myself. I wrote about needing to find better ways of managing stress. It’s a work in progress but I can tell you that my new life includes building in downtime and making sure that I’m physically strong and healthy.
• Build a better relationship. I’m a big believer that no matter how strong your relationship is, it can always be stronger. Dilip and I need to continue making sure we are on the same page, talk about the tough things and work through problems together. I want Syona to have a strong family and that starts with Dilip and I.
• Slow down, be optimistic and celebrate the little wins. I think that the unexpected blessing of having a child with special needs is that it forces you to examine what your definition of perfection is. You celebrate each and every achievement because you don’t take things for granted anymore. And because I want Syona to have a positive attitude, I’ve learned to be an optimist.

What are your New Year resolutions?