Lack of Commitment

OK, so my last blog was about how I was going to do a better job on blogging, but guess what, I failed again. I have come to the conclusion that there is just way too much going on in my life and I need to slow down a bit. Here it is 1 AM and I am in my daughter's bedroom with her and her first sleepover company eating beanie weanies watching Peter Pan. To many, that's not exactly an accomplishment, but to me it is. All my life I wanted to be a wife and a mother, but not just any mother. I really wanted to raise Godly, loving children that enjoyed spending time with me. It wasn't about what career path I chose or who I associated myself with--it was about the children I would bring to this earth and the relationships I would develop with them. I am so proud of them, and even though they are just 2 and 3, they are amazing kids. I try to spend as much time with them as possible making memories that will last a lifetime. I am not a big fan of daycare unless you have to work. If God has blessed you with being able to stay at home, I think you should take total advantage of it. Now that Rollins and Grady are older by my standards, I am able to take them more places alone and I am really enjoying this new found independence the three of us have. It is quite exciting to be able to wake up and say where would you like to go today--Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham? My kids are as adventurous as I am, and I am so glad they like to travel on a whim as well. I am especially looking forward to this school year. They will be going to nursery school on the same days (3 days a week for 3 hours a day) so I can get some much needed sewing in for Kennedy James Clothing, and the other two days will be our "fun days". I can't wait to see what activities we will come up with. I am sad, however, that this will be Rollins last year at home before she starts kindergarten. I try not to think about it too much.

I will be posting pictures and brief comments from the past months over the next few days so you all can get up to date with what's been going on in the life of the Whitakers.

I am back!

Ok, so I know most of you probably thought I fell off the face of this earth, but that's not the case. We have just been extremely busy since Christmas, so in an effort to fill everyone in on all the exciting things going on, I will be blogging quite frequently to get caught up.

I am startng with Rollins's first haircut, and yes, she is 3 1/2 years, and her hair has never been touched by scissors. She has never wanted to get her hair cut but it was down to her bottom when wet and beginning to look a little frayed. I finally convinced her to pay a visit to Mrs. April by telling her she could pick out ANYTHING she wanted to wear. Well, she comes downstairs with this tacky red $20 Christmas Dress she got off a bribe at Target--I do not like "fancy" dresses. I prefer smocked or heirloom dresses for Sundays, so this dress had not been worn except in playing around the house. I couldn't believe I was going to let her wear it in public and to make matters worse, Christmas had passed over a month ago at this point, but I thought, you do what you've got to do, and she wore the dress. I took some pictures before we left, and she enjoyed modeling for me in her fancy red dress.

Rollins hopped right out of the car when we pulled up, and I thought, this isn't going to be that bad afterall. She ran right to "pink building", but soon stopped at the door--Oh no, she was turning back--the red dress failed me, and she had changed her mind. I was pleading with her to walk through the door--I was already holding Grady and had the camera in my other hand, so I couldn't carry her in. It was at that point I realized it was all my fault--for 3 years I have threatened her with her life if she cut her hair, and when she wouldn't let me brush it, I would say, well I guess I will have to cut it all off. She associated getting her hair cut with getting into trouble. How was I going to explain to her that this was a good thing. She cried and cried and I had to call Brother to meet me down there so he could help with Grady, and I could hold her in the chair.

This was absolutely pitiful. Your first haircut is suppost to be exciting and here the day we had waited on for 3 1/2 years was filled with tears. It broke my heart.

Rollins has made it perfectly clear that she does not need anymore haircuts--I don't know how we are going to handle this in the future, but we will cross that bridge when we get there. Til then, I let her use scissors more freely and without the fear of getting in trouble because I know now that she will never cut her own hair.

Carly's 4th Birthday Party

When Brother went to work at Northwestern, we were fortunate to meet a couple families who had little girls Rollins age there. One of these was Carly. They don't see eachother that much because they live in Gadsden, but they always enjoy their time together. For Carly's 4th Birthday, she had a gymnastics party, which Rollins was so pumped about. She said, "mom this is a girls only birthday so dad and Grady can't go." She all about "girl only things". Here is a picture of Rollins in the pit.

Here is Ally and Rollins after running down the tramp to jump in the pit. Ally's father also works with Brother. They are only a few weeks apart.

This was Carly's Princess Cake. Rollins said she wanted a cake just like this one. We are planning a trip to Disney World in February, and Carly and Rollins will be making a visit to the Bippity Boppity Boutique so they can be a princess and hopefully eat in Cinderella's castle provided we can get reservations:)

I wish we had a gym in Guntersville where you could have birthday parties. Rollins does gymnastics in Huntsville at Southern States. She absolutely loves it, and I think this is such a wonderful idea for a birthday.

Rollins Update

So, many of you have called to check on Rollins, so I wanted to let everyone know what is going on. We went to the doctor last Wednesday just to make sure everything was ok and that this was just a freak thing. Dr. Boggess said he believed she passed out from a lack of oxygen because she was crying. However, I did share something with him that I hadn't really discussed with anyone til now. Rollins has this thing she does where she will be playing and all of a sudden go in this daze. I can say her name, and she doesn't respond. I can wave my hand in front of her eyes and she doesn't blink. Then after 10 to 30 seconds, she loosens up and starts laughing. I had always thought she was doing this on purpose to be funny. She sometimes does it multiple times a day. Dr. Boggess has another theory, though. He said it sounds like typical petit mal seizures, and asked how long she had been having them. It's been going on so long, that I honestly have no idea. He said he wanted to get her to a pediatric neurologist because this can really affect her ability to concentrate when she starts school. I told him how Brother has been saying he thought she had ADHD because she can't concentrate and looses focus very easily. If this diagnosis is correct, this could explain her lack of concentration.

Of course as soon as I got home, I got on google. I found out that many times these seizures go undetected for months and these type seizures don't have that "confusion" phase that happens after most seizures. Rollins is able to go right back to what she was doing before it happened and has no remembrance of what happened during the seizure. In most cases, they outgrow them by their teenage years and even though they can't be prevented, medication can be taken to help lower the frequency.

I have to be honest, I am not upset about this at all. I know we have been through a lot with Rollins, and this just seems like another bump in the road. It could be so much worse--I had friends that would have grand mal seizures--that would absolutely terrify me. I know God isn't going to give us more than we can handle. He has already done wonderful things with her Gastritis, and she is a healthy 34 pounds (25th percentile) 3 year old. Grady, too, is getting much better, and is now 27 pounds (25th percentile) and will be 2 in two weeks. We are even planning a trip to Disney World in the next couple months. I am very anxious to see how this goes since neither Rollins or Grady have been away from home since last Fall when we went to Auburn. For those of you that don't know, their Gastritis and Esophagitis is much worse when we travel. They also will not even spend the night with my parents. It's really sad when your 3 year old says she doesn't want to stay in a hotel because it makes her throw up. I am keeping my fingers crossed that all the excitement of Disney will trump these disorders!

Anyway, I will keep you all posted on Rollins appointment with the neurologist. She is such a special little girl with a heart of gold. I am so blessed to have her!

Grady has melted my heart

For those of you with second children very close in age to your first child, you might have noticed that they don't do things as quickly as the first--or maybe it's just my children. Rollins was talking up a storm by her 2nd birthday. However, Grady has kept his thoughts to himself. He'll say Roll Tide, Hold Me, Golf Cart, Aubie and then of course any one syllable word. He turns two syllable words into one syllable by just pronouncing the first syllable. Like Rollins is Ra, Mommy is Ma, and Daddy is Da. I have been working with him on saying I love you, but he never would even say I, he would just hug himself when I would say I love you. This past week, all four of us were in bed watching a movie, and I whispered in Grady's ear, "I love you!" He turned to my ear, and whispered back, "I love you!" Then gave me a kiss! Now, this is the only way he will say I love you, but he will only do it to Brother or me. My mom has tried so hard with no luck. I guess God kept him from saying it for so long, because he wanted it to be special, and that it was!

Answered prayer?

Ever since our children were born, I have tried to convince Brother that a christian education would be extremely beneficial to them. He saw nothing wrong with public schools and I will agree that we are very fortunate to have an excellent public school system here in Guntersville. He and I both attended Guntersville from kindergarten til graduation and had wonderful experiences. He went on to Auburn and I to Lipscomb. There was such a huge difference in public and private educations. I am so thankful for having the opportunity to be surrounded by people who believed in the same God and had the same values as me. God was a part of every class you attended and we had uplifting chapel everyday. I just really wanted Rollins and Grady to share some of those same experiences. Well, the school I want to send them to is in Huntsville, and Brother said it makes no sense to drive there everyday when there is a wonderful school here in Guntersville.
I had pretty much given up my argument, when Brother got a call one day from his boss. They were wanting him to relocate to Huntsville. I didn't think much of it because I know how he said he would never leave Guntersville. We talked about it and weighed in on the pros and cons. The pros were endless. What better way to grow a business than to move to a much much larger city? However, the cons were leaving our families, all of which are here in Guntersville. Also, Rollins has already formed some wonderful friendships and I would hate to take her away from that. So, we really didn't talk much about it through the holidays, then the call came this morning. They had to know today if he was going to relocate. I didn't try to persuade him one way or the other because I wanted him to make this decision--I honestly just put it in God's hands because I had no idea myself what to do.
Well, he took the relocation. I have to be honest, I almost cried when he first told me but I have to be supportive and trust that God is working through this with us. Since our house in on the north side of Guntersville, we are going to stay here for a little bit to see how everything goes. If we see that this is where God wants us, we will then move. We have already started looking at real estate there, but have no idea which part of town we would even want to live in. We have decided to keep the lake lot and probably build a cabin so we would have some place to stay when we come visit.
This is exciting but very scary. We don't know that many people in Huntsville, so Brother is going to have to do a good job of networking. Please keep our family in your prayers as we face many important life decisions in the next several months.

The scare of my life

Today was suppost to be a restful day at home. After a very busy and eventful Christmas Holidays, I was looking forward to just spending time with Brother, Rollins and Grady. We had some friends come over to bring their daughter, Ella, to play with the kids and jump on the trampoline Santa brought us. My neice and her friend also stopped by. We were all standing around the trampoline talking, while the kids were jumping. All of a sudden, Rollins starts screaming. Brother said she landed on her back and he was in a panic because he thought she was really hurt. I got her off the trampoline, and I was holding her like you would hold a baby, trying to decide what to do. All of a sudden, she immediately stopped screaming, her body went limp and her eyes rolled back in her head. Brother was standing right there with me when it happened, and I screamed, "oh my God!" and started running to the house. I have seen someone have a seizure, and that was exactly what happened before they started convulsing. However, this only lasted for a few seconds, which seemed like an eternity, and by the time I was almost in the house, she was back crying. We laid her on her bed and after we determined she hadn't hurt her back, Brother said he was going to take the trampoline down, which Rollins, who was still crying said, "no, I want to jump!" I can't tell you how bad this scared me today. I have never really thought about how to handle a situation like this when it involved my own child. I took all the first aid and cpr courses as a part of my health class in college, but I don't think I could have recalled any of it, if I were to have needed it today. I still don't know what happened to Rollins, but trust me, Dr. Boggess will definitely be getting a call this week. Words will never be able to describe the feeling that overcomes you when your child goes limp in your arms. It's by far the scariest thing I have ever experienced.

This is a picture of Rollins jumping on the trampoline. Brother has now decided not to take the trampoline down, because Rollins loves it so much. Accidents are going to happen and you can't go through your life avoiding everything. I just trust that God is in charge and he will take care of me and my family. Brother and I have both been very upset all day about it. Neither of us could get enough of her hugs and kisses tonight. Thank you so much God for taking care of my baby today!