As a boy growing up, the idea of beauty evolves so rapidly.
As a toddler, anything that can be put in your mouth is beautiful.
As you begin to walk, a ball becomes the epitome of beauty.
As you get older, you appreciate the beauty of the world around you: mountains, snow, that very climbable tree.
You start to appreciate animals for their beauty: your dog’s soft fur, the majestic power of horses, the effortless flight of birds.
And inevitably, as you get older (the timing is different for every one of us), one day a girl catches your eye. It’s a new feeling of appreciation. Have girls always been this…pretty? I actually remember that particular moment in third grade. I still remember her name. I still remember thinking for the first time: this is beauty.
And you continue to grow.
Now you’re in fifth grade, you might get your first crush. And it’s all giddy excitement.
Sixth grade, it’s still fun and interesting—this beauty that girls hold. You’re fascinated by it. For some of us, it becomes all we can think about.
Now you enter high school. And many start to broaden their thinking. You still appreciate the beauty you did as a kid—in that delicious snow cone, the sound of a basketball bouncing, the unique beauty of a fish dangling on a line, the forests, the sky…
But all of these things pale when compared to the beauty of the female sex. And you start to believe that they are a species of their own. You long to understand them.
The world has long tried to shape, mold, and distort your view of what true beauty is. As you go through high school and grow, girls become a central theme.
And then one day, in high school or after (again, the timing is different for everyone), you see someone — and you realize there is more. Not only is this person beautiful—you can see that immediately—but there’s more. You notice grace, you see confidence (or lack thereof- both are beautiful). You notice demeanor, kindness, a way of speaking. A way of being.
This is someone you want to be around.
And if you’re lucky, that person wants to be around you too. And now this person is light, air, and sustenance. Being around them energizes you. You realize: this is beauty.
And then you get married.
You notice there are blemishes. They do things that annoy you. They have habits you don’t understand. Somehow, your mind doesn’t reject them. Because, like the distant and jagged edges of a mountain, you know the imperfection of this person adds to their character and to their beauty.
One day, it all changes again.
She starts to grow around her belly. Everything the world has tried to convince you isn’t attractive starts to happen. You realize you never knew what beauty was. She literally glows.
She grows, and she glows.
And then your world is flipped upside down. Because you see a miracle happen before your eyes. The beauty! After that moment, you can never look at this being you’ve started a life with the same. You will never go back. You realize you have been in the presence of a Goddess—not in the cliché way we use that word nowadays, but an actual being sent with miraculous powers from a place above.
The life she bore and created grows. And you look at this little life, and you look at the woman who brought it to you, and you try to wrap your mind around this beauty.
The craziest part is, from this moment on, the woman—your wife—often feels her least “attractive.”
And you look at her, and you realize there has never been anything more majestic, more miraculous, more beautiful than this person.
This once girlfriend. This once fiancée. This wife. This mother. This person.
She thinks the miracle she has borne has subtracted from her beauty, because the world often tells her it has. That she has lost her once great power.
This couldn’t be farther from the truth. You want to know the truth?
This person is the most beautiful thing to ever exist.
Ivy just had her fourth Six Flags trip and Sage her third. If we’re keeping score, that’s four trips in four years (of age) for Ivy and three trips in two years for Sage. We’re on track.
To some people Six Flags is just a theme park. To a Quackenbush Six Flags is ground zero for formative experiences. Ground zero is an adequate analogy. Only the strong survive these trips.
One interesting dynamic that developed this trip was Sage voicing her opinion. Last time we went to Six Flags, Sage was still young enough that she just went with the flow and/or whatever Ivy wanted to do. This was the first trip where I had to balance the demands of a toddler and a four-year-old preteen. But we’ll get to that.
If you read 2023’s trip report you know how early we usually leave for these trips. This time we drove straight to the beach on Friday and went to the park early on Saturday.
Beth’s sister Eve came to Arizona from Utah and joined us on the trip to California. Her coming along was a lot of help. For once Beth and I weren’t outnumbered.
Beth and Eve didn’t want to go to the beach, so they dropped us off on Friday and went and did I don’t know what with Wren.
Sage is now at the age where she has a pure love and infatuation with the beach, particularly with sand. She ate a borderline unsafe amount of sand.
The girls both came out of their shells on this beach trip. They even went in the water! Ivy was fully submerged, not completely by choice. She and Sage were playing on the edge of the water, and I guess she fell in. She was really upset until I told her how awesome she was and then she brightened up.
We played a lot of Spikeball and swam in the ocean. Good beach trip.
That night baby Wren and baby Fulton got to meet for the first time at our favorite California trip Mexican restaurant, Don Cucos.
But the next day was Six Flags!
One of the parts of these California trips that is most memorable to Ivy is the hotel breakfast. Ivy LOVES the hotel breakfast. If you ask her about it, she’ll tell you they have great juice (we don’t drink juice at home).
We had breakfast and since we were already in town and not driving straight from Arizona to Six Flags, we were able to get to the gates ahead of the 10:30am opening. It was the first time we’d ever used the “VIP entrance” feature of our tickets. We got through the gates and got to line up at a rope ahead of general admission. We were headed towards rides at 10:22am. This gave us a big head start on any crowds. We were able to ride 10 rides in our first 30 minutes inside the park.
The plan was to go ~3 adult rides and then ~3 kid rides but since there were no lines, we got carried away with the power.
In the meantime, the kids got to meet Flash and see the Batmobile.
Sage was skeptical of Flash
Ivy hit a milestone since our last trip. She was now 42” in height, opening up a bunch of new rides for her. The first new ride Ivy got to try is called Teen Titans Turbo Spin.
I was a little nervous about this first of 42” rides. Turbo Spin is a carnival style ride where you stand against a wall and spin at a high speed. Ivy loved it.
We were very disappointed that a ride called Battle for Metropolis was closed. That was another that Ivy would have been able to ride. It’s one of those rides where you slowly travel around in a cart with a fake laser zapper shooting bad guys.
There was another ride we had never before worked into the rotation. It was called Jet Stream, and it had no height requirement. It was a water ride that the entire family got to ride. Ivy, Sage, and all the little ones enjoyed it.
The final new ride that was an addition for Ivy was Roaring Rapids:
This was by far the longest line we waited in. It was so long Ivy almost boycotted. When we were very near to getting on the ride, she started loudly casting her vote for leaving.
While Ivy waited in line at Roaring Rapids, the other young kids – Sage, her cousin Kaia, and her cousin Fulton – all went to Bugs Bunny World.
We finally got on Roaring Rapids. Ivy’s excitement quickly turned into a freak out when the first splash hit her. Roaring Rapids can have that effect on you. She freaked out for most of it and continued to freak out as we got off. She was mad that she was wet. I reminded her how hot it was outside and pointed to some people sitting in the shade fanning each other. I asked her if she thought she was more comfortable and cool and wet than those people. Her mood quickly turned as she was excited to admit she felt cool and wet.
Finally we got to Bugs Bunny World. I took Ivy on a couple of her favorites – the ball house, the School Bus, and Taz’s Trucking Co – before we found Sage and her cousin Kaia.
We spent a couple hours riding everything the girls wanted to ride. As I mentioned, with Sage developing a strong opinion on what ride she wanted, there was a lot of deal-making and compromising. Kaia was only with us a couple rides so after that future ride decisions became a sister battle.
Six Flags is where you grow. When it was just Ivy, Sage, and I, we went and rode a favorite, just for the novelty of it: the Tweedy Bird Cages (See Ivy’s trip in 2023 for picture proof of Ivy getting Grandpa into a bird cage). I sent Ivy and Sage in to ride together. At first they were going to ride in separate cages. But as they approached and the fear set in, they joined their courage together and rode in one cage. They both came off so happy.
Next to the bird cages was a ride called Road Runner Express. We hadn’t tried that one before. I knew it was a kid roller coaster, potentially on the “extreme” side (for Ivy and Sage). We went up to the nonexistent line. This was a ride I would have to sit with Sage on, leaving Ivy alone. The teenage ride operator seemed sympathetic to this issue so he said if the three of us could fit in one cart, we could ride together. I got Sage in, I climbed in, but when I tried to get Ivy to join us, she refused. She didn’t want to ride. The ride operator said she couldn’t stand in the ride area, so she had to leave the platform, go through the gate, and go down the stairs to watch. I watched anxiously as Ivy left the gate. My heart broke. She was resigned. She was trying not to seem upset, but she was disappointed.
Is this how it is being a parent?
Seeing the subtle growth, and sadness, and disappointment and having to watch and feeling your heart break for your sweet daughter?
I dread more of these moments as my kids grow. I guess it’s life.
Sage and I rode the ride. Sage was terrified, but she did it. We got off and found Ivy sitting on the bench. She looked so big. I hardly recognized her, sitting by herself, I assume thinking about how Sage and I just rode the roller coaster and she didn’t. I asked if she wanted to ride the ride and she said no. We moved on.
We went to the merry go round.
Next to the merry go round was a ride called Speedy Gonzales Hot Rod Racers:
Ivy enjoyed this ride last time we were at Six Flags, despite it being on the extreme side for her.
This would be another ride that I HAD to ride with Sage, but Ivy was tall enough to ride alone. I explained this to Ivy as best as I could. It would be another situation like the last roller coaster that Ivy didn’t want to ride alone. As Sage and I got in our seats, Ivy started to panic. She didn’t want to be alone. I calmly explained to her that I had to be with Sage because she was too little but that Ivy was my big girl and she could ride behind us, but she’d have to be alone.
I thought she was going to leave again.
I was prepared to collapse into a puddle of sad dad, watching my daughter be disappointed yet again.
But then I saw a shift in Ivy’s eyes. From my perspective, I think she remembered what just happened at that last ride, and she didn’t want it to happen again. “Defiantly” seems like a dramatic word to describe how she approached her roller coaster cart, but I can’t find a more adequate word. She got into her seat and got buckled in. I looked behind us to watch her.
I was proud.
Ivy rode that roller coaster by herself. When it stopped, the ride operator gave the group an option to go a second time. I looked back at Ivy. She was grinning from ear to ear yelling, “Again! Again!”
After our second time around, we got off the ride and Ivy wanted to ride again. Sage wanted to go back to the merry go round. I told Ivy we could come back to ride again after the merry go round. The merry go round was right by Speedy Gonzales. We got in line for the merry go round and Ivy looked longingly over at Speedy Gonzales.
Ivy looked at Speedy Gonzales, and back at me, and back at Speedy Gonzales.
Then she did something completely unexpected. Ivy proposed that she go to Speedy Gonzales while Sage and I rode the merry go round. I told her that would be okay. I watched as she walked towards Speedy Gonzales. At the ramp up, I saw her confidence waver. She stopped. She never looked back at me, but she stopped. Then she ran up the ramp. I watched her stand in line and wait for her turn.
It may seem like a small thing to some. But Ivy is very tentative, very cautious, she usually won’t go out of our sight. There she was, waiting in line to ride a roller coaster by herself.
This made me think about something. Bad things happen. Ivy not riding that first roller coaster while Sage and I went made me so sad to watch. If I could have changed it, I probably would have. If I could have inserted the courage into Ivy’s little soul by force of will, I don’t think I could have resisted. But then Ivy wouldn’t have learned and grew. She grew in that moment of disappointment.
God sees bad things happen and He doesn’t change it. If He did, we couldn’t grow. If He changed things, He would be defeating the purpose of us coming to earth. You go to Six Flags to be brave, to be disappointed, and to scream your heart out: The same reason we came to earth.
If I changed what happened at that first roller coaster then Ivy wouldn’t have learned something important about herself, about being brave, about what she is capable of.
Anyways, back to Six Flags. We finished the night, shutting the park down at 9:00pm, on Crazanity. My dad potentially got hit by a bat and we talked to security and medical staff to make sure all was well. No big deal.
I think the next day was Father’s Day.
We had lunch at a pier before heading back to Arizona while my family went to the beach.
Moments where you feel like a good parent doing good things sometimes don’t come often enough. And then one comes that is so impactful it brings you to tears.
Ivy claimed to be sick this morning. I thought she was making it up until I saw her throw up with my own eyes.
So she stayed home from school. Without any guidance or prompt, she went upstairs on her own and laid down in her bed. This is very un-Ivy like. She was definitely sick.
I got a show setup on a laptop for her so she could lay in bed and relax. I brought it to her, and she didn’t want it, she just wanted to rest. Ivy was definitely sick.
An hour later she came to my room and said she did want a show. We walked back to her room, and I started to get it setup. She said she needed to throw up and inexplicably walked away from her throw up bucket and passed her bathroom down the hall to my bathroom.
Luckily, she made it in time.
She knelt in front of the toilet. She looked so big, her little four-year-old body, already knowing how to properly throw up in a toilet. Any parent can relate to and feel the pain of watching their child throw up.
I held her hair and rubbed her back.
Ivy stood up.
She said, through little sobs and stutters as she caught her breath, “Daddy, I ask Jesus in my bed to help me. Will you pray for me at my bed? I asked Jesus to help me stop throwing up.”
Those words don’t fully capture it. I cannot properly put in words the sweetness, the tenderness, the humility, the vulnerability, the faith, the innocence of what was coming out of Ivy’s mouth. What I put above was roughly what she said. But it was so much more. It was soft, it was gentle, it was pleading.
This pleading was not with adultlike “this needs to get done” energy, but with patient understanding. This request came with complete innocence. Coming from your four-year-old who is normally all chaotic, joyful energy, these calm, sweet moments can be so jarring.
I explained to Ivy that Jesus might help her stop throwing up, but I promised her that even if she didn’t stop throwing up, He would be with her and help her. I told Ivy, “You know when Jesus died for you?” She nodded, as this is something we talk about often. “When He died for you, He felt what you just felt, that hurt and pain and sickness of throwing up, He felt it. So even if you throw up more, He is with you.”
Ivy said, “Even when I get big owies, He feels it.”
I took Ivy back to her room. I put a show on for her to watch. She lay in bed.
How do parents parent without faith?
This parenting thing is hard enough. How could I explain to Ivy that she’s throwing up and in pain and I don’t know why and there’s nothing I can do about it?
In the last couple weeks, my knee has been healed, my daughter with potential hip dysplasia has been blessed (what happens is yet to be seen), and my Ivy has known that even though she’s sick, Jesus is with her and helping her and there’s a reason for it.
How do you raise kids without this?
I don’t know.
The last thing Ivy said during our conversation at the toilet, “Jesus is God, that is why I ask Him for help.”
Jesus is our God. Heavenly Father is our Father. They watch over us. As I sit here with tears in my eyes, my sweet daughter laying in bed suffering with a little tummy ache, writing this out, I’m reminded that Jesus is God. And I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know that. It would be so hopeless otherwise.
He died for us, and He knows our pain.
I wish we could all have the faith of a 4-year-old.
Surprisingly I haven’t written about the Chosen yet.
I’m about to finish season 3. I think this is an important TV show.
In this season, there is a moment when Mary is talking to Tamar, a woman from Ethiopia.
Mary voices jealousy towards Tamar for seemingly being able to push her way into the group without any hardships. Mary points out that she needed demons cast from her and to be pulled drunk from a tavern to get to her current place with Jesus. Mary seems to think Tamar is lacking humility due to her lack of trials.
It was at this point that Tamar said something that jumped out at me while I watched:
“Jesus forgave you, but you choose to hold on to it.”
An episode later we get a look into Matthew’s past. Matthew is my favorite character.
We see a flashback to when an old man came to Matthew during Matthew’s time as a tax collector. The man brazenly admits to legally accumulating tons of debt in an effort to help his children. The man will be sentenced to a prison camp because he’ll never be able to pay back the debt. He doesn’t care; he is an old man.
The man then gives Matthew some prayer tassels. They are seemingly worthless, but the meaning of the old prayer tassels was significant to the old man. To him, those tattered tassels were priceless.
The man gives them as a gift to Matthew telling him that one day he may regain his faith and need them. Matthew insists that he will never need those prayer tassels. The man insists.
Matthew held onto those tassels and Mary found them.
When Mary asked about them, Matthew told her the story. He didn’t understand why the man gave this sentimental item to him. Mary explained that the old man wasn’t giving some prayer tassels to Matthew, he was giving his faith to Matthew.
Matthew’s response:
“Why would he do that for someone like me?”
Mary then told a story about a time she was going to kill herself. The only thing that stopped her was a dove. She saw it in the distance and took it as a sign that she shouldn’t do what she was considering.
She told Matthew that man who gave away his prayer tassels was Matthew’s dove.
These scenes from this powerful show gave me a lot to ponder.
I often feel like Mary and Matthew.
“Jesus forgave you, but you choose to hold onto it.”
“Why would he do that for someone like me?”
I pondered on whether I’m holding onto anything. Are you?
The second question is a question I ask myself often. Why would God do this for someone like me? Why did Christ suffer, for me?
Sometimes I think I’m like Mary, holding onto guilt that Christ no longer wants me to hold. That said, I have an interesting relationship with my guilt. I don’t dwell on it. I think a lot of it has left me. Still, sometimes I think I feel unworthy.
We all hold onto things we should let go, becuase Christ already forgave us.
We are surrounded by doves, those people that see our potential. We can always be the dove to someone else when they feel like they’re coming up short.
We all feel unworthy sometimes, even though those around us see our potential. And God always sees our potential.
I had an Ivy experience that I wanted to write down. It’s something I think I’ll never forget, but still good to get it written to make sure I don’t forget the lesson from this experience.
One night I was with Ivy and doing her bedtime routine. I don’t usually do “Beth’s routine.” My routine is to rock Ivy to sleep with a bottle then lay her down. This night Beth asked me if I wanted to do what she normally did which was read to Ivy, then turn off the lights, rock her to sleep, and lay her down.
I started reading a book to Ivy and she was thoroughly enjoying it. She was curled up in my left arm as I rocked in the rocking chair and held the book up in front of her with my right hand. She would get a huge smile on her face every time I would emotionally read a portion of the story.
As I was reading, my left pocket started to vibrate. Normally I wouldn’t even consider answering a call at this moment. I had been making calls that week for my church calling. There were some people I needed to get a hold of, and it was important I talked to them. This all went through my mind as I held Ivy and weighed my options. I decided I didn’t know when I would get to speak to this person again and I needed to answer.
I jostled Ivy up a bit and got the phone out of my pocket. I believed it to be only a minor inconvenience to her. I answered the phone and began talking. I expected it to be only a minute or two conversation. As I was talking, Ivy got unsettled and started to fuss. I put the phone between my right ear and shoulder and got her into my lap in front of me. I started to bump her up and down to soothe her.
As I rocked her up and down, she got more content. When I was listening to the person speak on the other end, she even smiled and enjoyed the rocking. Then I started talking. When I talked to the person on the other end, for some reason Ivy got really unsettled.
This is the image I have in my head. When I would be talking into the phone she would curl her bottom lip over her top lip, her bottom lip would start to quiver, and she was the saddest looking baby I have ever seen. I’ve seen her do this once or twice before, but never so directly related to something I was doing.
This pattern repeated a couple times. I wouldn’t talk and she would smile and rock on my lap. I would start talking into the phone and she would get very upset and start to cry. The image I have in my mind is of betrayal. I don’t know if that’s what Ivy was actually thinking, probably not. But all I could think was, this was her time with me, and now I’m on the phone, and it’s upsetting her more than I’ve ever seen.
It broke my heart.
I got off the phone within 5 minutes but by that time the damage was done. I turned off the lights and tried to rock her which almost never fails but she was not having it. She was completely unhappy.
Beth took over and was able to settle Ivy down and put her to sleep.
I went outside to think.
Now, the reason I answered the phone wasn’t bad. I don’t think what I did was blatantly bad. My intentions were good.
As I sat outside, this is what I told myself. I got kind of bitter for a moment. Can’t I answer an important call related to my church calling? How can I be a productive and responsible member of my church if I don’t take those important calls? I was getting more upset. Then something hit me.
There were a lot of good things that I could have been doing at that time while I was with Ivy.
But, at that moment, there was nothing more important in the entire world than being with her.
I wasn’t bad because I wanted to fulfill my calling, answer the phone, help someone, fulfill my duties. Those were good intentions.
It didn’t matter.
While I was reading to Ivy, she was the most important thing in the world. Nothing else mattered. Whether or not she actually felt betrayed by me answering that call during our reading time (again, she probably didn’t), I did betray her. That was her time with me, and I took it from her.
I could have called that person back 15 minutes later and it would have been fine.
I learned an important lesson I hope I never forget that night. While there are a million good things to be doing, my daughter is the most important thing in the world. Especially in the precious and far-too-few moments I get with her, nothing else in the world should matter.
It was one of those cosmic-shift moments. One of those moments I realized would stay with me for the rest of my life. A moment I learned an extraordinarily important lesson from.
I’m grateful for that moment, and I hope to never cause that quiver of a lip ever again.
Reading back on this 4 years later and I think I still hold tight to that lesson learned. Just today someone told me about a celebrity who was asked if there was anything that made him jealous of other people. His reply was that he is jealous of anyone who still has kids at home.
One day my girls will grow up and I’ll miss the playing and the wrestling and the tickling and the screaming and the tantrums and the fighting. I try to remember that every day.
Now Ivy is almost 5 and Wren is how old Ivy was when I wrote this. Crazy.
No Coincidences 