Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Daddy picked Nanaw up on Tuesday afternoon to go to Centene to get Chase from hockey camp. The idea was for Nanaw to see how to get there for when she picks him up on Wednesday afternoon. It turned out that there’s an easier way to go rather than 270 to 70, You can get right to the entrance road by taking highway 141. So that’s the way Nanaw is going. Daddy and Nanaw got to watch Chase skate for about an hour or more and that was fun. He really skated well and did all the activities well. Daddy told Nanaw hockey camp was the only camp Chase asked to go to. It’s fairly expensive but worth it because Chase is learning a lot. Next year is the last year he can go – 15 is the top age. Mama had dinner with her work family tonight at Bartolino’s to celebrate their boss Wendy’s retirement. Mama had pizza, of course. Wendy is going to take care of her grandchildren, just like Nanaw did with Chase. It’s the best “job “ in the world, and Nanaw loved every moment of her 14-½ years with Chase. Nanaw sent Wendy a congratulations on your retirement card and told her she’s going to love her new “career.”

Monday, June 1, 2026

Two updates from Mama: Number one is that Chase and Daddy did go to church Sunday morning before Chase’s Bears 1 p.m. baseball game. Number 2 is that Saturday night when they came home from baseball, they ordered Papa John’s pizza. And of course, Chase had to have stuffed crust. On Sunday, they had Panda’s after losing game 2. Another update is that Nanaw is riding along Tuesday afternoon when Daddy goes to the Centene Hockey Center to pick up Chase from hockey camp. This is so she knows where to go when she picks Chase up on Wednesday afternoon. So Nanaw won’t see Chase any mornings this week because Daddy will be taking him to hockey camp, which starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. Chase will come to Nanaw’s house after hockey practice so that makes Nanaw happy. Today, Chase was really tired from camp and mostly just lay on the sofa playing with his phone. Nanaw wanted to do a little school but he said he was too tired. But then he agreed to do 10 state capitals – what a sweet boy he is to do that for Nanaw. 

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Nanaw assumes Chase and Daddy went to church on Sunday morning because he didn’t have a baseball tournament game until 1 p.m. but she’ll double-check that with Mama. On Sunday, Chase had another day of baseball in St. Peters. His Bears team won their first game at 1 p.m., 17-4. See below for the write-up about Chase’s performance in the game. He got three hits!! Unfortunately, his team lost their second game. Mama said he didn’t complain when she took the second picture below, which is unusual for Chase because Mama and Nanaw are constantly taking pictures of him. Nanaw doesn’t get to see Chase tomorrow until late in the afternoon because of the Wayne Gretsky hockey camp, which is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Nanaw thinks Daddy is taking and picking him up on Monday and Tuesday, taking him on Wednesday morning and then Nanaw is going to pick him up on Wednesday afternoon. One of the times, Nanaw is going to ride with them so she knows where to go to pick Chase up. It’s at the Centene hockey complex where the Blues practice, somewhere out at Earth City. Maybe Nanaw will do a reconnaissance drive. 

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.