Saturday, May 30, 2026

On Saturday, Chase had two baseball games with his Bears team, and he and his friend Tucker played on the B team. They won the first game 10-4. Mama said they had a long break between games so they went to Raising Cane’s for lunch with Tucker, his mom and Colin, another one of the players on the Bears. Unfortunately, the B team lost their second game so badly Mama didn’t give Nanaw the score. Now for Nanaw’s plan about how to do school for Chase this year. On Thursday afternoon, Nanaw had read the first Weather Academy lesson out loud to Chase in his room. She did it as much for herself as for Chase because she wasn’t doing a good job of remembering what she read online. So it made her start thinking about trying a different approach to school for Chase. Instead of having him spend two hours at the dining room table doing school work, she’s going to try breaking it into brief sessions interspersed with him playing on his phone, playing on the computer, playing knee hockey and pencil hockey, etc. So Friday, for their first three sessions, they did: naming the capitals of the first five states in alphabetical order in their book on states; reading the second Weather Academy lesson out loud; and solving five algebra equations provided by ChatGPT. Some of the other sessions Nanaw will try with him are: taking the touch typing lessons online so that he can really type and not just use two fingers; playing on the keyboard and making up songs; going through the class folders of papers from 8th grade and reviewing some of the material he’d learned; plus other things Nanaw hasn’t thought of yet. 

Friday, May 29, 2026

On Friday morning, Nanaw took Chase to his workout session close to his friend Drew’s house. She didn’t have any trouble finding it because of the reconnaissance drive she and Mama had done the day before. The workout sessions are an hour, and Nanaw had brought along her iPad and was going to watch soap operas she missed. But she couldn’t get Spectrum to work so she went back to Columbia to Schnuck’s and Dollar Tree. At Schnuck’s, she bought her newspaper and the big, yummy strawberries she likes so much. At Dollar Tree, she bought some extra pairs of reading glasses because she seems to either keep breaking them or losing them. For lunch, Chase had one of the Michaelina frozen dinners – wheels and cheese. In tomorrow’s Days of Chase Nanaw will talk about the new approach to summer school she’s going to try with Chase. At 5:45, Mama, Daddy, Chase and Nanaw had a birthday adventure for Daddy – dinner and a movie: They went to Marie’s for ice cream – a replacement for dinner. Daddy had two scoops of strawberry, Mama had one scoop of coconut, Chase had a huge purple waffle cone with two scoops of Superman ice cream, and Nanaw had a medium hot fudge sundae with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, pecans and whipped cream – yum. After Marie’s, they went to the Waterloo Cinema to see the Star Wars’ movie The Mandalorian and Grugo. Grugo is a tiny fellow who sort of looks like Yoda and who steals the show. The review Nanaw read about the movie said it was dull but Nanaw thought it was anything but dull. The whole move consisted of fights and wars and battles. Chase hadn’t wanted to go; he doesn’t like movies but he seemed to sort of like this one. Even Mama liked it and didn’t fall asleep. They all had sodas and everybody but Chase had popcorn. Nanaw hopes they have more birthday adventures like that. Nanaw had forgotten to take a picture of Chase for Days of Chase so he sent her a selfie when they got home from the movie.

Thursday, May 28, 2026

Chase and Nanaw had two exciting adventures today. The first one was at noon when Chase decided to cook buttered noodles for his lunch. He looked up a recipe on the Internet and began gathering the things he needed. First, he filled a saucepan with water, then put it on the stove to boil.  Then, he got out spices – garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Then he put together a small bowl with shredded Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. He put the noodles in the boiling water and when they were cooked, he put melted butter, the cheese and the seasonings on them. He gave Nanaw a taste, then ate half of what he’d fixed. Later in the afternoon, he ate the rest as a snack. It was a very successful cooking session for him, and Nanaw was so proud. Plus, the noodles were delicious. The second adventure was that they started studying weather through the online, free Weather Academy. Today they studied the atmosphere, clouds and precipitation. Nanaw printed out the courses so she and Chase can read them aloud to each other to reinforce what they’re learning. Nanaw started sorting through Chase’s school papers she’d saved. Some of them she saved to go through during summer school, and the rest she threw away. Chase did an incredible amount of written work this school year. When Nanaw took Chase home, she and Mama went on a reconnaissance drive to the place where Chase does his workouts. Nanaw has to take him at 11 tomorrow morning. It’s very easy to find. Mama texted Nanaw at about 10:30, asking if Tee Tee was there. Chase had put him with the backup Tee Tees and forgot about him. Nanaw took a picture of Tee Tee with the backups and sent it to them, saying he was enjoying a delightful sleepover with his family. Today was Grandma Marge’s birthday.

Wednesday, May 27, 2026

On Wednesday morning, Chase brought over a $20 bill. He said he wanted to buy a game on Steam, which is a gaming site that he plays on on Nanaw’s laptop. The name of the game is Tape to Tape, and he spent some time today playing it. He really likes Nanaw’s laptop, which is just like Mama’s. Maybe some day Mama will get a new laptop and give her old one to Chase. Mama is still dealing with Chase’s school, trying to get them to deprovision his Chromebook from the school’s management sysem. There doesn’t seem to be anybody there who knows what to do to get the school’s material and control off the Chromebook. Chase would like to be able to play on the Chromebook at home and put games on it, which he couldn’t do when it was connected to the school’s system. In the afternoon, Nanaw asked Chase if he wanted to hang out with Amelie and he said he hadn’t heard from her. Nanaw said why didn’t he text her and he said, “Oh no, I couldn’t do that!” When Nanaw asked why, he just said, “I couldn’t do that!” Later, Mama and Nanaw laughed together about that. Nanaw suggested they do some school today but Chase said maybe tomorrow. Nanaw also tried the sports visioning thing she’d read about where, as an example, the person closes their eyes and envisions themselves holding a bat at home plate, the pitcher does a wind-up and pitches the ball, and they hit a home run. But Chase said he couldn’t do it because it takes him 30 minutes to envision anything and fall asleep. Nanaw doesn’t think he understood at all what she was talking about. She’ll have to try again.

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Chase made arrangements to hang out with Amelie on Tuesday. They agreed to meet in the park between 11:30 and noon. Nanaw took Chase over to his house a little after 11:30. He rode his bike over to the park and met Amelie there. Eventually, they came over to Chase’s house and played basketball for a while. They played hockey in the garage and then went downstairs and played knee hockey. They finally ended up sitting on the sofa downstairs playing Roblox on their phones and then just playing on their phones. Nanaw went downstairs to get the cord to the Chromebook so she could charge it, and she said hello to Amelie and asked her if she wanted anything to eat or drink. Amelie said she’d like a glass of water so they went upstairs and got that for her. She’s a nice girl, friendly and talkative. She gave Chase a wonderful pocketknife with his name on it. She and her family went to Gatlinburg and that’s where the knife came from. Chase gave her a purple bead bracelet. Amelie had to go home at four and then Chase and Nanaw went back to Nanaw’s house for a while. Nanaw asked Mama if Chase could stay an extra half-hour at Nanaw’s and Mama said yes. 

Sunday, May 24, and Monday, May 25, 2026

Nanaw texted Mama asking for an update on what Chase did on Sunday, and Mama texted back that he didn’t do much. It sounded to Nanaw like a lazy day for everybody, resting up from vacation. Chase and Daddy went to church in the morning, and then Chase did some hitting in the back yard. For dinner, Daddy grilled hamburgers, Nanaw assumes Chase also did a lot of playing on his phone, as usual. On Monday, Memorial Day, Chase spent time with three of his friends: Cole, Hunter and Brady, at his house and at Cole’s house. Nanaw came over for a rib dinner and brought red-skin potato salad, Hawaiian rolls and cookie dough ice cream. The ribs were delicious and so was everything else. Before dinner, Chase played floor hockey with the stuffed animals and talked to Nanaw. He said he bought Amelie a present in Florida and later he showed Nanaw the purple bracelet he bought for her. He said she had also bought something for him on her family trip to Tennessee. Chase said he wanted to hang out with Amelie tomorrow, and Nanaw said they would figure that out. Nanaw brought her laptop along with her and told Chase it was going to have a sleepover with him, and he was happy about that – he likes playing on Nanaw’s laptop. Mama told Nanaw that Chase is going to the Savannah Bananas baseball game in August with his friend Tucker, and Nanaw knows he will enjoy that. Before dinner, Mama and Chase stood back to back in the kitchen to see if Chase had grown any in Florida, and it looked like he had so Mama measured him again. He was 5 feet 5 ½ inches, an inch taller than at the doctor’s office.

Saturday, May 23, 2026

Mama, Daddy and Chase got up early on Saturday morning and left Santa Rosa around 5:40, which Nanaw thinks might be 4:40 a.m. Columbia time. Nanaw keeps forgetting to ask Mama if Santa Rosa is on Central or Eastern Time. Nanaw will look it up right now. Santa Rosa is in northwestern Florida on the Gulf of Mexico and is on Central Time so they left at 5:40 Columbia time. Mama sent Nanaw a picture of Chase sound asleep in the back seat. She said he fell asleep right after they left and slept for a long time. It’s the picture below, and Chase is wearing a Truman shirt. Nanaw liked it a lot and asked Mama where she got it, and Mama said she thought she got it at Rally House. Mama thought they would be home by six but they actually got home around five. About five-thirty, Mama and Chase came over to Nanaw’s to get the pets. It made Nanaw so happy that he came along with Mama. Nanaw has missed him so much. They brought Nanaw a little bottle of small shells and sand – very cute. Chase asked Mama if he could stay at Nanaw’s for a while, and Mama said he could stay for an hour, which made Nanaw even happier. He played games on the laptop for a while, using the new little device Nanaw bought him for his graduation. Then he went into his room to play pencil hockey as they call it although pencils are not longer involved; he now uses much bigger things to shoot balls into the hockey net. He also watched the Stanley Cup game. Sylvester and Tyler sent Nanaw a $50 Amazon gifr card for taking care of them, and Nanaw sent them a thank you note, saying she was surprised they have an Amazon account. Nanaw took him home a little before seven.