You were the easiest of all my births. My water had broken in the morning, so they told me I had to come to the hospital. I sat in there and was bored most of the day because contractions didn't start. I remember I was chatting away with my sister on the phone late in the afternoon and complaining because nothing was happening. She called back about 2 hours later for an update and you were already born! Back then (I don't know if they still do today) babies are given an apgar test right after birth. It checks breathing, heart rate, muscle tone, reflexes and skin color. The rating is on a scale of 1 to 10 and I have been told that only doctor's children ever get a 10 rating. Well guess what? You were given a 10! We were quite the proud parents of our perfect son!
During my pregnancy, we debated on a name for you. I had always loved the name Josh and really wanted to go with it and Dad had no objections. Of course, the normal thing to do was to name you Joshua, but I said that we never intended to call you Joshua so why don't we just name you Josh. That is what we did and I have never regretted it and hopefully you haven't gotten too tired of telling everyone that your given name is "Josh" not "Joshua."
You were an easy baby and tolerated your older brothers shinagins well. Shawn would tote you all over the house and Jay would hug you way too tight, but you just accepted everything as the norm. I could tell right from the beginning that you had a much more laid-back personality than your two brothers. You weren't as aggressive and didn't try to test the boundaries of what you could and could not do. Imagine my surprise and delight when after a nap (this was when you were old enough to talk) you actually called to me and asked if it was okay to get up.
As a baby you did everything pretty much right on schedule. You were soon crawling, then walking and then talking. I remember when you were first learning to talk, Shawn was too hard a word for you to say, so you simply made up your own word and called him "Dula." We all got a good laugh over that. One other thing I learned early on was that you do not like a lot of motion. When you were about 8 months old, I took you boys to Safe Harbor Park. While Shawn and Jay played on the slide and ran around, I plopped you in the baby swing. I gave you a nice firm push and you screamed. I thought you must have gotten a bee sting or something, but soon I realized that you were terrified! I joked that you were the first baby I every met that didn't like to be pushed in a swing. You were really old before you ever swung in a swing properly and to this day, you don't enjoy high motion rides.
When you were little, I had a job typesetting at home. I would barricade you from getting to me at the computer by pushing a sofa between you and me. Usually you were pretty good about it, but sometimes you would just sit on your side of the sofa and cry. I always felt really bad when this happened and often recruited Grandma Denlinger to keep you while I typed. You loved spending time with her and Grandpa at their house.
By the time you were two, Shawn and Jay were both in school so you and I spent a lot of time together. Twice a week we would head up to Ephrata where I dropped off my finished manuscripts and picked up new ones to type. You would be in your car seat in the back and when we exited Route 30 and started on to 222, we drove over rumble strips. Every single time you would say "what's that?" I would always say "rumble strips" and you would repeat "umble stips" quietly to yourself. I always expected that sometime you would identify them as rumble strips when we passed over them, but you never did. I think it eventually got to be a game between you and me, because you actually knew what they were, but you just wanted to ask and hear me say "rumble strips."
You started school and did pretty well. I always said about you, that it might take you a little longer to learn how to do something than that of your peers, but that once you did learn it, you usually did it better than anyone else :) Another area that you excelled in when you were in grade school was sports. You were naturally gifted in athletics and we enrolled you in Little League. I remember one year your team went to the playoffs and you were the leadoff hitter. Every time you were up you slammed the ball somewhere, and I think hit a couple of homeruns. The game was close and in the last inning you came up to bat again. Some parents of a boy on the other team were sitting behind me and dad and they didn't know that you were our son. When you came up to bat, the dad said, "oh no, not this kid again!"
Your high school years were pretty uneventful. You grew into a mature, easy-going, likeable, fun guy. You had good friends and you enjoyed FFA and excelled in it. I think FFA really gave you confidence that carried over into all parts of your life. Bible quizzing was a big part of those years as well and you were awesome at that. We had so much fun learning the material and I was so proud of your achievements as an all-star quizzer many times.
You accepted Jesus as a child and it has been a blessing to watch you mature in your Christian faith. I appreciate your dedication to church and especially to the young adult class. You have willingly taken on jobs at church and you continue to amaze me sometimes with your hidden talents. It has also been rewarding to see how you continued to keep Bible quizzing a part of your life by being a judge/quiz master.
Most of your life is still ahead of you and I have no doubt that God has a lot of blessings in store for you and I am excited to see how your future unfolds. Thank you for being that down-to-earth, hard-working, dependable, wonderful guy that we all love.
Josh Andrew Lehman, I am so blessed to call you my son.
Love,
Mom
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