In my second sermon to our new congregation, I had the
occasion to introduce Josiah in this way…
“I want to begin today with one word: YAHOO! It’s a word I’m learning from my son. Josiah is our third child, and he’s 2 years
old. And Josiah is the kind of kid who,
on the day he was born took a good long look at the world and thought to
himself, “Now this is gonna be a lot of fun!”
Josiah is all about the fun. He
almost never stops smiling. He greets
you in the morning with a smile and keeps it going all day. Playing with his siblings, he’s smiling. Running around the yard, he’s smiling. Tormenting his baby brother, he’s
smiling. You put him in time out… he’ll
still be smiling. And his irrepressible
nature, as you can imagine, makes him a lot of fun to be around. He loves to laugh, and to make other people
laugh. He hates to sleep because he
might miss a good time. And he runs and
runs to keep up with his big brother and sister. If it looks like fun, Josiah’s going to try
it. Twice. I know, if I hear him say, “Watch, mama!”
he’s about to jump off of something. I
have prayed more prayers than you can imagine over his two front teeth.
He’s working on potty-training these days and in true
Josiah form, about the third time he sat on a toilet he held his hands out to the
side and said, “Look! No hands!” So it should come as no surprise that his
newest word is “Yahoo!” “Yahoo!” he says
as he leaps off the couch. “Yahoo!” when
he hears we’re going swimming. “Yahoo!”
he yells when he gets his flip flops on the right feet. I’ll even hear him say it too himself for no
apparent reason, “Yahoo!” For Josiah,
there’s a lot to celebrate in life.”
[For the record, I did
work my way around to making a point with all this. I didn’t just talk about my kid for 20
minutes. But they pay me big bucks to
preach so I can’t just go around giving away sermons for free J]
Josiah helpfully validated my description of him after
worship when, with a number of witnesses from our new congregation, he jumped
off one of the pews with a smiling “Yahoo!”
He really is that fun.
And funny too, especially as he has started talking more and more (and
we can understand him now!). Realizing
his “yahoo!” side may need to be curbed before he’s 16, I’m sure enjoying him
now.
10 minutes after this photo was taken, Josiah rode his brake-less tricycle down the neighbors steep driveway and into their closed garage door.
He didn't say "Yahoo!" And he wasn't real happy about the outcome (a badly bruised cheek that faded into a black eye the next day). But at least he had his helmet on!
