And he’s been doing it since the age of 8 (he’s a ripe old ten now).

And while it sometimes feels like a skewer in my ear – years of dj-ing have left me with tinnitus and hyperacusis – I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I have to shake my head in awe at this kid’s joie de vivre.  Let me reiterate: he wakes up whistling.  I hear “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” or “Jingle Bells” coming from his room at about 7:15 every morning (Christmas songs are his favorite).

Oh, sure, we’re all more or less happy to be alive, but how many of us are ecstatic to wake up every day on this spinning rock?

So ecstatic that you can’t possibly contain your bursting life force and must let it out through your puckered lips?

As a baby, Gabriel never just smiled.  He opened his mouth wide, like he was preparing to jam his fist into it.

This morning, as he was whistling his own composition, I sat down next to him and asked him not why he whistles, as I dared not imply that there was anything wrong or odd about him doing it, because to dampen such a life spark would be a crime against all things beautiful and rare, like feasting on an endangered song bird, but how he learned to whistle.  “Well, you’re a really good whistler, dad–“  “No, no, Gabriel,” I interrupted,“I know I didn’t teach you, did a friend show you how to do it?”  (I wanted to steer him away from thinking I was just fishing for a compliment, which, of course, I’m certainly not averse to doing).

“One day I just started blowing,” he explained, “and I heard a sound and I really liked it.”  Ah!  Self taught!  An autodidact – the next Schoenberg or Telleman…

…only smilier.

Here I must pause to say I think the ability to whistle is hereditary.  My wife Linda and her siblings can not whistle to save their lives or even that of a cute baby seal, and neither can my older son Rafael, who looks exactly like my wife.  On the other hand, Gabriel looks like me, and we can both whistle, ergo, the offspring who most look like one or the other parent surely must inherit that parent’s useless abilities.  And I know what I’m talking about: you don’t get a third place yellow ribbon at your eighth grade science fair without knowing a thing or two about genetics.

Sometimes Gabriel and I get heated about who is the better whistler, and once, in the kitchen, we button holed Linda and asked her who was better.

We each offered competing renditions of “Happy Birthday.”

I went first.  There were a couple high notes I missed, and I tried to fake them through with a desperate extra push of air, but I was sure this would count against me, and so, in an overcompensating panic, I squeezed in a bunch of extra trilling notes at the end, just like some American Idol contestant who knows he’s going down in flames, but is gonna singe some ears along the way.  (imagine singing Happy Birthday and ending with “….happy birthday dear Gabriel, happy birthday to you-ooh-ohh-oh-whoa-a-whoa-oh-oh-hoo-who-y,y,y,-yooooooooo-hoo-ooh-b-i-i-r-th-da-ay-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeaaaaaaaah.”)

Then Gabriel whistled, loud, clear and confident.  He won.  Hands down.  It was obvious.  His mother pronounced it so, but Gabriel smirked to indicate he didn’t want to be awarded a win based on maternal bias, so he turned to his father – a known competitive bastard – for a second opinion.  As I’ve never cut either of my kids an inch of slack at chess, checkers or Monopoly,  he knew I’d give him the unvarnished truth, biased, if anything, toward myself.

“I’d have to say I brought more creative flourish to the song, unlocking its latent potential, but, in terms of a classical textbook interpretation, I’d say you edged me out.”

He looked at me quizzically: “Wait, so who did better?”

Annoyed at having to explain a perfectly clear answer, I sighed and told him, “It depends on the criteria.  Think of a measuring stick – one is metric, and one is standard American – both can be used to–“

He gave me that confused look again. “Ah heck, Gabriel, you know you did better, you don’t have to torture me about it!”

He shrugged (insouciantly or modestly, I couldn’t tell) and left the room.

Yesterday morning he woke up whistling again, of course, but by the time he made it downstairs, he was singing.  I listened carefully.  He sang, “Bow down, bow down before the power of Santa, or be, or be, crushed by his jolly boots of doom!”

The line may have been a tad dark for Gabriel, but he delivered it with his trademark upbeat élan nonetheless.  (btw, did I mention we presciently gave him the middle name of Elan before he was even born?).

I asked him if he crafted his original compositions – whether whistled or sung – in his head before giving them utterance, or whether he left some room for improvisation, and he simply answered, in a fake “skater” voice,

“Bro, you just gotta go with the flow.”

Indeed–hey–wait a minute!  Was he accusing me of not going with the flow?!  Was this yet another one of his casual barbs, stuck straight into my heart?  I gave him the stink eye and he started whistling Happy Birthday.

He’s just lucky I’m a sucker for “Jingle Bells” in July.