Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Today's dress-down theme was to dress as a celebrity. Mama came up with the idea of Chase dressing like a sports celebrity. He wore a baseball jersey, a baseball hat and an oversized necklace of yellow circles -- very cool. He said he thought the principal liked his outfit. Nanaw forgot to report in yesterday's Days of Chase post that his class finished The Hobbit, and Chase took the AR test on it and earned 16 points. His goal was 22 points, and he only had 21 so he took one of the article tests for 1 point and made his goal. He was really happy about that. After school, Chase did more work on his poster, then played games on the computer and pencil hockey in his room. Nanaw came into his room with him and read The Hobbit, trying to finish the book. She only had a few more pages to read, and she finished it in the evening. Chase doesn't think they do any reading at Gibault like he did at ICS, and Nanaw is going to miss reading books along with him. Tomorrow Chase's class is supposed to take a break from dress-down week and dress in their uniforms so they can have pictures taken for graduation. Thursday evening is the last band concert that Chase will be in. He doesn't want to be in the band at Gibault, even though Mama and Nanaw tried to persuade him to do it. It turns out that several of his friends quit band, and he just doesn't want to do it without them. Today was Daddy's birthday, and Mama baked a birthday cake for him when she got home from work. After Chase's workout, Mama was going to KFC (or Kentucky Fried Chicken as Nanaw still calls it) to get his birthday dinner. Mama was really happy about today's picture. It has Tee Ted in it with Chase instead of Truman. Most of the pictures lately have been all about Truman -- they used to be all about Tee Tee.

Monday, May 4, 2026

When Mama brought Chase over to Nanaw's house on Monday morning, she also brought along two baby photos of Chase but neither of them was really any good: one was reddish and the other was whitish. It was for a special project at school where all the 8th graders were supposed to bring in a baby picture. Mama doesn't know what they're going to do with them but as soon as she finds out, she'll tell Nanaw. Nanaw got out a big bag of photos of Chase as a baby -- hundreds and hundreds of photos Nanaw took and had printed out at Walmart. Back then, after a while, Nanaw stopped getting the photos printed out but used them in the Days of Chase posts. The first picture below shows a group of photos Nanaw selected for Chase to choose from. The second photo is the one Chase chose that he turned in. The third photo is one Nanaw found in the batch of photos of Mama, Aunt Becky from Mama's work and baby Chase. The fourth photo is Truman with his Elmo backpack, which belonged to Chase when he was little. The fifth and sixth photos are Chase and Truman with Chase's championship ring from this past weekend's Bears baseball tournament. After school. Chase worked on his poster project for history. Nanaw is not quite sure what the project is but she saw some pages with biographical material about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice. So Nanaw needs to ask Chase what it's about. He printed out a lot of text pages and used Nanaw's paper cutter to cut them into the right size for his poster. The kids have all kinds of special projects and tests this last week of school. 

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Sunday was all about baseball for Chase, Mama and Daddy. Chase played two games in Fenton on Sunday; the first one was the qualifying game for the championship and the second was the championship game. Chase’s Bears A Team won both of the games. The game recap mentioned Chase’s performance in the third inning: “The biggest blow in the third inning was a fielder’s choice by Chase Southerland that drove in two.” The first photo below is Chase out on the field. The second photo is the championship team with Chase in the top row third from the left next to the two coaches. The third photo is Chase showing off his championship ring. He has a lot of rings and trophies from all his sports activities. He also has a lot of schoolwork ahead of him next week. It’s the last full week of 8th grade and his last full week at ICS. Homework Central says he’ll finish up The Hobbit book; have a chapter 13 test in religion; in History his WWII poster is due Monday, and his final exam project is due Wednesday; in geography, his New Zealand map is due Monday; and the slides for his English invention project are due Monday. There’s lots of work ahead for him!

Saturday, May 2, 2026

The first photo below is one that Mama texted to Nanaw about ducks. There are ducks (at least seven) in Nanaw’s neighborhood, and Mama, Chase and Nanaw are always on the lookout for them. Chase had an exciting baseball day on Saturday. He and his friend Tucker got to play on the Bears A team rather than their usual B team. And they played the team that Uncle Joe coaches and Jackson plays on, which was the most exciting thing of the day, except for the results of the two games the Bears A team played. More on that later. Mama got to visit with Aunt Jen during the game, which was fun for Mama. Aunt Jen told Mama that she was sorry that Mama would see how cranky Coach Joe got at Jackson’s baseball games. Chase’s Bears A team won both games – 13 to 6 and 12 to 1. Mama says the A team wins a lot of their games but the B team did win one of their games today so that was good.

   

Friday, May 1, 2026

Daddy took Chase to school on Friday because he had the day off and was playing golf with Uncle Will-Bill, Uncle Stan and Eric. Nanaw is not sure who else played so she’ll ask Mama. Nanaw got to sleep late so she liked that. Nanaw had to get the oil changed at Dobb’s and ended up having to get a new oil pan.  They stripped the threads on the plug to the oil pan taking it off so they didn’t charge her for it. Nanaw was there for five hours, from 11 a.m. till 4 p.m. so she didn’t get to pick Chase up from school. She called Mama and asked her to pick up Chase. When Nanaw was done at Dobb’s, she called Mama and asked if she could come visit Chase for a few minutes before he left for his workout. Mama said Chase wore his Notre Dame hockey jersey to school for the Adam Sandler day. After Nanaw left Chase’s house, she ran some errands and then went out to the little house.

Thursday, April 30, 2026

For the past couple of weeks, Chase has been in an unusually good and happy mood. Nanaw thinks it might be because it’s almost the end of the school year, and he’s looking forward to the summer break. He’s also doing better with his grades in school – he only has one B and one B+. the rest are A’s, plus two A+’s. Nanaw is very proud of that. Even the two classes he usually has trouble with, science and religion, he has A’s. Today, though, he was fussing about the plans for dress-down days for the rest of the school year. Students suggested themes for the dress-down days tomorrow and seven school days after that, and Chase thinks they’re silly, and he doesn’t want to do them. Mama thinks they’re a great idea, and she’s going to provide things for Chase to wear. Tomorrow is Adam Sandler day, and Nanaw has no idea what Chase would wear for that. Monday is high school spirit wear. Tuesday is dress like a celebrity day. Wednesday is dress like you are in 2018. Thursday is white lie shirt where you write an obvious lie on a white shirt. Friday is rhyme without reason. Monday is dress like a meme day. Tuesday is dress to impress by wearing graduation attire. We’ll see what Chase does. Tomorrow Chase has a religion test. He and Nanaw studied after school, and he seems to know the material. Daddy is taking Chase to school tomorrow because he’s golfing. So Chase and Nanaw won’t be able to do their usual before school studying for a test.

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

This morning before school, Chase and Nanaw studied for Wednesday’s vocabulary test, and Chase seemed to know the words fairly well. When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, she forgot to ask him how the test went so she’ll ask him tomorrow. They gave Cole a ride home and once again, Chase carried on laughing in the back seat. But before that, Chase announced that he’d forgotten his study materials for Thursday’s science test and that he’d have to go back into school to get them, which he did. At Nanaw’s house, she had Chase read through his science packet. Then they went into Chase’s room and she quizzed him on the three informational sections about the human nervous system in the packet. He seemed to know most of the material but Nanaw said he should read through the whole packet again this evening. Then in the morning they would study the material in the science textbook. Chase told Nanaw that he expected lots of final exams next week, the last full week of 8th grade, the end of Chase’s adventure at ICS. He wasn’t sure what classes would have them, and he thought that maybe all of them would. Several times today Chase talked to Nanaw, sharing suggestions and ideas and plans, something totally new for him. He seldom, if ever, does that, and Nanaw was happy to hear what he had to say. He told Nanaw that he and Mama were having Sonic for dinner on Friday night while Daddy was golfing. He asked if he got an A on the science test, could they go to the big Schnuck’s (the one in Des Peres) and get some of the $10 Gouda cheese. When Nanaw told him she’d invited Mama, Daddy and him out to the little house for a day of swimming in the lake, he asked if the two of them could go out there and maybe have a sleepover. Then he said, maybe not because the WiFi was so bad out there, and he couldn’t play on his phone. Nanaw told him that she now takes her new T-Mobile WiFi box out there and it works well. So since he can play on his phone, he’s interested in going.