No Coincidences

Tag: Ivy

  • Another Toddler Experience

    Another Toddler Experience

    I hope parents learn from their toddlers. I learn from Ivy all the time. Here is a simple example.

    Today we were all sitting on the couch. Sage was cradled in my left arm. Beth was sitting to my right with Ivy in her lap. Bengie, our aging dog, was between us.

    Ivy was doing peaceful mother-daughter stuff with Beth. Seemed boring to me. Plus, I was getting bored with what I was doing on my computer. So I reached over and poked Ivy. It was intended to be a tickle, normally Ivy’s favorite. But in that moment of peace, she did NOT like it. She scowled at me and turned away.

    I apologized for an improper time to play. Ivy and Beth continued to peacefully interact.

    A few minutes later, Ivy reached out and smacked Bengie. He understandably got annoyed by this intrusion on his peace and snapped back. This upset Ivy. Wanting to utilize a learning opportunity, I said to Ivy, “Ivy, don’t smack Bengie if you don’t want him to do that. He’s just laying there and you bothered him.” I continued, “How would you feel if I did that to you?…”

    Oh.

    I realized what I was saying. I had just done that to her. It was just moments later that she did the same thing to Bengie. I was close to missing that simple and obvious realization.

    I put my hand on Ivy’s head and said, “That’s probably why you did that to Bengie, huh?”

    A learning experience.

    I’m not sure how much Ivy learned from it, but I did. I was reminded that Ivy is watching, replicating, repeating, and behaving in the ways she sees me act. When she disrupts Bengie’s peace, well, I’d just disrupted her peace. When she loses her temper, she’s seen me lose my temper. When she gets upset, she’s seen me get upset.

    Obviously, Ivy is her own person and has her own emotions and actions. But it’s amazing to see how much she copies me. If she does something I’m disappointed in, it’s beneficial for me as a parent to stop and wonder, “is this something she learned from me?”

    I fear sometimes that parents don’t take enough responsibility for how we mold our children. Again, toddlers get angry and frustrated and do completely irrational things that they aren’t copying from us. But sometimes, a lot of the time, their behavior can be traced directly to something they saw us do.

    When we realize this, our every movement, word, and reaction around our children becomes something important.

  • Sage Laura Quackenbush 9/3/22

    Sage Laura Quackenbush 9/3/22

    I’ve long anticipated this moment. I didn’t know what it would be like to have my heart split into another section. I talked about when Ivy was born, how my world flipped upside down. I’ve heard that the feeling of having a second child is incommensurable. How can you describe loving two things so much?

    Sage Laura

    I’ll be honest, when Sage was born, it wasn’t what I expected.

    The love for Sage, compared with my love for Ivy – it is different, and yet so the same. This isn’t a contradiction but, I think, a profound truth. I can’t help but think of Ivy as I look at Sage. I love them both so much. I see a glimpse of how Heavenly Father can feel.

    I can imagine how my Heavenly Father can see me and love me so much. And as He sees me, He thinks about my mom and my dad, my siblings, my wife, my children. When I look at Sage, I’m reminded how much I love Ivy, and vice versa. It is a welding link of love. This doesn’t diminish the love at all. It expands it.

    It’s the best I can put into words what having a second daughter was like.

    My love for Beth expands in these moments too.

    I couldn’t understand how I could love Beth more, or how I could love someone like I loved Ivy. I couldn’t imagine how my heart could split in three. But now I realize, it’s not splitting. It’s expanding. And with it, my understanding of Heavenly Father is expanding. I understand that His heart and love can’t possibly split for all of us. It expands for all of us. That’s how He can be the definition of love, He has so much to love. His heart has expanded beyond our comprehension. This is what I realized when I looked at Sage. My heart expanded a proportionate amount to how it expanded when Ivy came into my life.

    3 girls

    I got to speak to Ivy today. I pointed at her and told her, “You’re my girl, and I love you so much. And guess what? I have three girls!” Ivy’s eyes got wide, one of my favorite things she does. I continued, “I have Sage, and I have your mom, 3 girls! One Ivy, two Sage, three Mom. I love you all so much, my three girls.”

    It’s a phenomenal feeling. Any feeling that helps me to understand Heavenly Father more is amazing and special to me.

    I’ll be interested to read my 12/4/20 Ivy post after writing this to see how they compare. Right now, I am full of gratitude. Sometimes I can’t believe that God has given us this gift, His most powerful gift. He has trusted me to take care of His daughters while here. They become my daughters, but always His as well. This brings me so much comfort. I want my daughters to know that they’re never alone. I am always here for them, and so is their Father in Heaven. They’ll never be without a dad.

    I went back and re-read that post of Ivy’s birth. There are some things I wrote about Ivy that, if Sage ever looks back and reads this, I want her to know apply to her also. My two girls.

    From that post –

    “When I first saw Ivy James Quackenbush my heart expanded, my world flipped upside down. In an instant I realized I would do anything, I would give my life without a second thought and at a moment’s notice for that beautiful soul. She was perfect, so beautiful.

    I wish I could put it into words, but they’re not enough. My life as I knew it was over. And I knew it. This little thing was the new center. The center of my universe- along with Beth. (Now I have three centers to my universe).

    I couldn’t stop staring at Ivy. The gravitational pull of the universe had changed.

    Sage

    The thoughts I hadn’t let start because her coming had always been surreal started to flood my mind: I’m going to play basketball with her. I hope she loves basketball. We’ll play together. We’ll be best friends. I hope I never hurt her. I hope I can always protect her. (Now they’re my two best friends. Ivy is my MVP and Sage is my DPOY).

    How does Heavenly Father love me? I’m a little closer to understanding today. I’m a little closer to understanding what true love is.”

    I’ve realized something else now that Sage jas been with us 5 days. Yes, my world flipped upside down when I saw each of them. Yes, the gravitational pull was palpable. But what really develops that love into a bond truly unbreakable is the countless hours laying on my chest, the first grin that I get to see, the hours of bouncing and burping, the feeding, the watching them grow. I think this is why the motherhood bond is so powerful. Mothers often get more of these experiences than fathers, unfortunately. It is these moments that unite us to our children for eternity. These are the favorite moments of my life. When Sage lays on my chest and instantly falls asleep, I’m reminded I’ll do anything for her. I’m reminded how much I love her.

    I love my family so much.

  • Ivy’s Love of Transportation

    Ivy’s Love of Transportation

    Ivy had the best weekend recently. We flew to Vegas to see my family. Fun fact about Ivy, the girl LOVES transportation. By that I mean, all things that move. Airplanes, cars (vroom vrooms), buses (round and rounds), tractors, go-karts. If it looks like it moves, Ivy loves it.

    Ivy had been on an airplane before, but this was her first, what I like to call “conscious” flight. She had some idea what was going on this time, different from when she was 8 months old.

    You can only imagine how exciting a place the airport was for her.

    First, she got to ride on the electric shuttle to the terminal.

    Billie, Ivy, Dad

    Then, she had her first experiences with escalators. Ivy LOVES escalators. Of note, she is not a big fan of elevators. I guess that gravity shift for her little legs is a bit much.

    Then she got to get on an airplane. Lots of curiosity mingled with excitement.

    Then we had a 3-hour delay and had to exit the airplane. Did Ivy care? Of course not! More time to wander around the airport, looking out the window at airplanes. Yes, we did do that for 3 hours.

    Ivy hearing announcement about Delay
    Ivy pondering all the fun she’s about to have in the airport
    Ivy exploring airport

    By the time we got on the plane to actually fly, Ivy knew everything there was to know about an airport terminal and was ready for the sky!

    She loved flying. She looked out the window and pointed out all the lights. She like to put her finger and thumb together to show that the cars and buildings were getting very small.

    Ivy’s joy reached a peak on our return flight.

    We had those moving walkways right by our gate. So we spent an hour straight going back and forth on that. I must emphasize that this is not an exaggeration. One. Hour. Straight. Back and forth.

    Ivy has recently started doing this thing that is my new favorite thing in the world. When she gets extra excited, she says YES! And clenches her first and pumps it in the air – “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

    Picture this with a happier face and you’ve got it:

    So, when we started down the tunnel for our return flight, Ivy remembered what was coming, going high on an airplane. She excitedly started walking in front of us, fist-pumping and yelling “YES!”

    When we landed at 10:30PM, her enthusiasm couldn’t be dampened by the late night. We got to ride her all-time favorite mode of transportation. A ROUND AND ROUND. If Ivy sees a bus, she’ll twist her hand around and say “roun n roun.” You know, because the wheels on the bus go round and round.

    When we got off the round and round, she was disappointed. We had to tell her the round and round needed to go to sleep. This was ruined when we walked back to our car, passing 4(!) round and rounds. The excitement at each one was palpable.

    Finally, we got to vroom vroom home.

    Thus ended the best weekend of Ivy’s life.

    Every time she has seen an airplane since, she points straight up, and says, “high.”

    She can’t wait to fly again.

  • Emotions of a Toddler

    Emotions of a Toddler

    Have you ever thought about how far you’ve come emotionally?

    When Ivy gets upset, she does crazy things. An example: today she was upset and throwing a tantrum. So she decided to put her foot underneath the couch and yell “STUCKKKKK” to emphasize and dramatize how difficult her situation was. She was not stuck.

    Can you imagine an adult doing this? You’re at the office and your coworker gets frustrated and starts thrashing around and yelling. Next thing you know they’ve put their foot under their chair, in a position that it could easily be pulled from, and yelling, “I’m stuck!” How crazy would that be?

    Hard at Work
    Hardly Working

    Again, have you considered how far you’ve come? From a toddler that has almost zero control of emotions, to a child who starts to have some semblance of control, to a teeneager who, depending on how you were either reverted back to toddler-hood or became more emotionally balanced (I reverted to toddler-hood), to an adult. Now, you go to work, drive in traffic, and go to the grocery store, constantly surrounded by frustrations that should have you throwing tantrums. But you don’t. You handle your emotions and live your life. Some do this better than others.

    The problem is, are you still getting better?

    I think a lot of adults get to adulthood and, whether consciously or not, come to the conclusion that they’ve “made it.” There is no more growth to go. You can brush your teeth and dress yourself so you’ve got it all under control. The truth is, we can still get better at controlling our emotions. There is always growth to be had.

    We’ve come a long way from being toddlers. But don’t stop. Keep going. Further your self-control every day. Become better. This is growth.

  • Children Need Their Father

    Children Need Their Father

    I went on a weeklong river rafting trip. I believe it was the longest time I’d spent away from Ivy. A large portion of that trip, I did not have my cell phone with me.

    When I got off the river and started driving back to Las Vegas with my family, I checked my phone and learned that Ivy had not had a good week. Meltdowns, tantrums, refusing to sleep. Apparently, she’d had a very hard time in my absence. I didn’t even recognize the girl being described.

    Many theories were tossed around to explain the behavior: teething, out of her routine (they stayed at my in-law’s house), she was sick, her shoes were too tight. I knew the truth. She missed her daddy. I couldn’t wait to get home and comfort her.

    I’ve written about missing Ivy before. This was the first time, it seemed, she could really miss me. I just finished a book, What a Difference a Daddy Makes by Dr. Leman that talks all about the importance of a father, especially in a daughter’s life. It talks about how a father reinforces confidence and helps a daughter relate to men as she gets older. It talks about how moms have a tendency to parent and do things one way, and the balance of how a father generally does things is important to a child’s development. This is at least partly why The Family Proclamation says, “Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.”

    I believe I was 16 when I first hung up on my mom while she was talking. I promptly received a call from my dad. The usual mild-mannered, relaxed father I knew was gone. I was told over the phone, in no uncertain terms, that if I EVER hung up on my mother ever again, he would kill me. I believed him. He told me I was to treat my mom with respect. It was an important lesson I needed to learn. It was the last time I ever hung up on my mom.

    This is an example of why kids need their dad. Dads, in society, have gotten a ridiculously unfair reputation. Dr. Leman in the aforementioned book noted the unfair representation of fathers on television. Fathers are almost always bumbling blockheads that can’t get anything right. This is unfair and wrong. It has built a belief in society that fathers aren’t needed, or worse, that they cause more harm than good. Fathers are important.

    So how was Ivy when I returned home? An angel. The most well-behaved, happy, sleeping babe you ever met. She smiled ear to ear the moment I saw her when I got home. It was such dramatic joy that I almost didn’t believe all the propaganda I’d been hearing about her. She just needed her daddy.

    Before I could get too cocky, Beth had a doctor’s appointment during the week. It was Ivy and I for a couple hours. Then I got to witness all the behavior I’d seen.

    A growing girl needs her daddy. She also needs her mother. We’ve seen that Ivy is way happier when it’s all of us together. Ivy’s still relatively fresh from heaven. She knows the importance of family and the The Family Proclamation.

    I’m grateful to understand the importance of family. I’m grateful to have a small inkling of how important I can be to Ivy’s life. I’m grateful that Beth continues to be such a great mother. I’m grateful to have an amazing family to help me understand these things. I’m grateful that families can be forever.