Writer's Workshop - Just the Facts

This week, I'm having a bit harder time coming up with what to write about.  None of the topics are speaking to me as much as they do other weeks.  But I love participating in the workshop, and I think it's important to push yourself, even when you aren't as inspired as much as you'd like to be.
So... this week, the five topics are:

1. Last week I opened the opportunity to write an open letter to men with a word of advice, an issue you’d like to address, or a solution to a problem. This week? Hand over the reigns and let your husband write his OWN open letter to women.
2. 5 Random facts about you and your family. (inspired by Nice Girl Notes)
3. The last time you were sick…
4. Write a blog post inspired by the word “red”.
5. Your second grade teacher.

Well, my hubby isn't home, and trying to get him to write anything on my blog (even though I've tried to get him to guest post) is usually a futile request.  Blogging just isn't his thing.  The last time I was sick is pretty boring, so I don't want to go there.  Every time I try to think about blog posts being inspired by a word, "red" flees my head and "sleep" comes in.  And my second grade teacher.... well, I try not to think about her too much if I can help it.  Not one of my favorite ones.  So that leaves 5 facts.

You know, that kind of works out.  If we count my cat, there are five of us here.  One fact per person.  Yup.  I can do this!

1. Me - Let's get me out of the way first.  Then we can get on to the ones you haven't recently read facts about. One of the things that I may have mentioned before, but I didn't in my last list was that I love to sing.  I always have.  When I was little, I used to sing "Baby Face" all the time.  And when my aunt and uncle got married in 1980, they wanted me to sing "Here Comes the Bride".  (My scared self couldn't do it, though.)  Through middle school and high school, I showed my singing aptitude and sang solos during chorus a lot.  One of my proudest singing moments was being able to sing the solo at my senior year baccalaureate.  The other proud moment is the song that I created as a lullaby for my eldest when he was a baby.  Here is a video of him singing it with me.  (No, he didn't get Mama's voice.  But he loves to sing and that's all that matters, right?)

For those curious about the words, they are:

Sleep, my little one, sleep
Close your eyes, my little one, and sleep
Sandman is coming to carry you to dream
Sleep, my little one, sleep
Dream, my little one, dream
Close your eyes, my little one, and dream
Of puppies and kitties and who you're gonna be
Dream, my little one, dream
Pray, my little one, pray
Close your eyes, my little one, and pray
For God to watch o'er you, all of your days
Pray, my little one, pray

2. Rich, my husband - My husband has been a gamer for a long time.  He started playing with his uncle and his father when he was 10 years old.  By the time he hit middle school, he was GMing friends.  He still GMs those same friends whenever they can all get together.  And he's started GMing our boys too.  Pete's not as on top of things yet - he basically likes to roll the dice.  But Teddy's having a good time fighting monsters and winning prizes.  Rich has such a fantastic imagination and can think quickly on his feet, so coming up with scenarios to run people through, or thinking up a new direction to send his players when they go in a different direction than he expected, is something that he excels with.  That imagination, and the willingness to share this with the next generation, is one of the many reasons I love him.

3. Teddy, my oldest - Teddy has been reading since he was 2 1/2 years old.  Ok, you may think that I'm making this up, but I wasn't the first one to hear him read.  I was in the ER when I was pregnant with Pete and my friend, Christie, said she'd keep an eye on Teddy for me so Rich could be with me while we figured out what was going on.  (And, to this day, I still can't remember what it was.) Christie took Teddy out for lunch at Chili's and, when I was out of the hospital and she dropped him off, she asked, "Why didn't you tell me he could read?"  I looked at her like she was nuts.  I mean, he knew his alphabet and he could spell a few words like "cat", but actually read?  She told me that when they were at lunch, he pointed to the word on his bottle of milk and said, "milk".  She didn't believe what she'd heard at first, so she asked him again.  "That says 'milk'," he told her.  (Or something to that effect.)  I had a reader on my hands.  And that wasn't the only time he surprised someone with his reading.  When he was in the 4 year old class in Parents' Day Out, he read to his teacher one day.  They were reading a book about spiders, I think, and the only word that he got wrong was "arachnid".  And even with it, he was close. When I picked him up that day, she asked me the same thing Christie had. "Did you know he can read?!"  Right now, he's in first grade and reading at a 5th grade level.  I'm proud of my little reader.

4.  Peter, my youngest - Pete is an incredibly picky eater.  He's so picky that there are times I'll give him things he probably shouldn't have just because I want to get calories into the boy!  While he's getting better (he's actually branching out from drinking just chocolate milk to drinking other things, and last night he *gasp* ate three cut up pieces of pork chop), I'm still amazed at where this child has come from.  Neither his dad nor I, nor his brother, were picky eaters.  I think he gets it from my sister.  I seem to remember she was a picky eater when she was a kid.  Pete's also very particular when it comes to how he eats his food.  He doesn't want anything touching unless it's supposed to touch (like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Those are ok.)  If he eats a sandwich, it's got to be cut in half and if the crusts aren't cut off, he won't eat them.  He asks for nuggets and fries from fast food places, but the fries are really the only thing he eats.  He might take a bite out of each nugget, but even that's not a given.  One thing that does help with dinner time, however, is Beginner Dinner Games.  We bought this when Teddy was little, and since many of the cards focus on adding fun to eating, it seems to help some.  Some day, we may not even need them to get him to eat!

5. Lemon, my cat - Lemon was a gutter kitty that we adopted when he was 6 months old.  We had just adopted another gutter kitty (Tai) thanks to one of my co-workers who found him near her home but didn't have the room to take him in herself. I'd been wanting a cat for awhile, so it was a great excuse for us to get one.  Then one of Rich's co-workers came in and told him something strange that had happened that morning.  She was getting ready to come in to work and had set her backpack on top of an old coffee table they had on their front porch.  It was the kind with the doors and, after she heard a noise inside after she set her bag down, she bent down to look.  Inside were about half a dozen kittens, shivering in the cold.  She knew she needed to find them homes.  She was able to get two of them inside and washed.  "Oh crap," Rich told her.  "Now I have to tell Amber and she's going to want another cat."  He was right.  Within a few days, he went over to her place and picked up an orange and white cat that we named Lemoncello.  (I had a thing about naming cats after alcohol.  Tai was for Mai Tai.)  Where Tai had been a skittish kitty, Lemon wanted to be everyone's friend.  He was the cat that would snuggle up with his, would play with anything he found on the floor, and we always laughed at his antics.  Tai is no longer with us, but our gutter kitty Lemon still is.  He's 10 years old, so he's slowing down a little.  But there's still all the love that was there the first day we brought him home.

So those are my five facts.  One for each of us.  I hope you enjoyed the facts and the pictures that went along with them.  Come back next week for... well, whatever prompt I decide to answer!