H.

H. is a unique soul. Incredibly clever, funny, talented. Can mimic anything. Does impressions all the time. Used to sing opera in the shower every morning when he thought we weren't listening (we were - he's good!) He tackles life with gusto and always, ALWAYS finds a way to make the most mundane task fun. He walks around the house with a prop pretty much constantly. Swords (fake of course), mop handles, brooms. Anything he can get his hands on. Twirling, tossing, dropping, swinging. Scary for those of us in close proximity. But the kid has flair - I give him that. When he was a baby, he didn't smile much. One of my favorite pictures of him is when he was around 2 - his little lower lip in a bit of a pout, holding a toy apple in his hand, staring at the camera stoicly. That's H. - basically saying 'sitting still to get my picture taken is NOT what I want to be doing - so proceed and get it over with'. He is a contemplative, sweet soul with a gift for fun.

One Saturday, I took H. to work with me. He likes going to work with me. He helps stamp the incoming mail, stamp other things I need stamped (I'm pretty sure he thinks that's what I do all day - stamp things). One Saturday, I had some adding machine rolls that needed to be tossed. They didn't fit our machines and were too old to be returned. I wanted to recycle the paper instead of just tossing the whole roll in the trash. So I gave the rolls to H. and said 'here's the recycling bin - unroll all the paper on the roll and put it in the bin'. His eyes lit up at the thought.

Now, my expectation was that he would (as I would) put the roll on a pen or pencil and sit in a chair and unroll it. Not H. Within a minute, I heard him giggling. The building my office is in is a square with offices all around the outer walls and cubicles in the center. An aisle goes around the entire building in a square. H. was (gently) kicking the rolls on the floor, around the corners and all around the building, unwinding them as they rolled. Before too long, the aisles had streams and streams of paper unrolled on the floor - and H. was having a ball. When all the rolls were undone, he then trotted around the building picking up the paper in great heaps - almost like snow - and stuffed it into the recycle bin. This process continued for quite some time - and he loved every minute of it. Sometimes I'd hear a light 'thud' and he'd say 'no damage' and I'd remind him to not kick so hard the rolls were hitting the walls. He kicked, unrolled, gathered and stuffed for a good part of the morning while I finished what I needed to do.

His perspective is: if you've got to do it, make it fun. He applies that philosophy to most things in his life. I just asked him to please take the dogs out back (we're having some house training issues with Chloe) and he replied with a cheery 'OK'. And he did - but not before he grabbed a mop handle and carried it through the family room like a drum major as he led the dogs out back. He's a character, our H. Wouldn't trade him for a gazillion dollars.