Happy Valentine's Day! Monday, February 14, 2022

Mama and Daddy both had the day off from work on Monday, so they took Chase to school and then went out to breakfast at a pancake place in Millstadt. Nanaw picked Chase up from school, and he told her all about the Valentine party his class had. He brought home his Ark of the Covenant, and he had put his Valentine candy in it. He said he was going to put it in his room and trick Daddy about the candy. Chase gave me one of his Valentines and a pencil. It was the one he was going to give his teacher in case Nana couldn't find a teacher card at Dollar Tree. Nanaw couldn't find a teacher card but got one with a dog on it that worked just as well. Chase said he had Spanish homework and would do it at Nanaw's. He taught Nanaw to say "My favorite color is purple" in Spanish. The word for purple in Spanish is morada. After Spanish, Chase opened his Valentine's present from Nanaw. It was a big gibbon and a stuffed pretzel and stuffed cheese sauce that Mama picked out at Hallmark. Chase liked the presents very much. He named the gibbon Gibson. Chase brought the tabletop hockey game into the living room and put it on the coffee table. He played hockey for awhile as he watched Curious George on PBS Kids. Then he got a bunch of Hot Wheels cars from his room and played with those on the tabletop hockey field while watching Jeopardy. It's so cute how he makes up games to play -- very creative. Chase got a special present from Mama; it's the same one Mama bought for Cole's birthday present -- a game with tracks and bugs that run on the tracks. Chase also got lots of candy. Mama bought Nanaw a rose-scented candle, an Amazon gift card and two gnome hand towels that are very cute. Grandma Pat gave Nanaw a box of candy.

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Chase and Daddy went to church on Sunday morning. The 8th graders were selling Krispy Kreme donuts and pretzels for fundraising for their trip to Washington D.C in the spring. Daddy bought donuts and wanted to buy pretzels but they ran out of pretzels. In the evening Mama had a Super Bowl party. Chase and Daddy went to hockey practice but got home at seven to watch the football game and eat Mama's good food. Guests included Uncle Will Bill, Uncle Mike, Aunt Becky, Uncle Stan and Nanaw. Uncle Mike won $150 on the football pool; he almost won $500. Everybody was very depressed that the Rams won the game over the Bengals. Nanaw left her phone over at Mama's house so she'll have to go over in the morning and get the phone.

 

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Chase had baseball practice on Saturday morning so Mama couldn't bring him over to Nanaw's house in the morning while she did her grocery shopping. Nanaw went over to Chase's house at about five o'clock for dinner and Family Game Night. Nanaw brought along her Uno machine, and Mama, Chase and Nanaw played a game with the machine before dinner. Mama won the game, but Chase protested about her last move. Evidently, the friends he plays Uno with at school have a rule that you can't play a wild card on your last play of the game if you have Uno. Chase looked on the directions but couldn't find a rule like that so he grudgingly told Mama that she'd won. Chase has a problem losing games. He always wants to be the winner. After dinner, Chase and Nanaw played with his stuffed animals on Chase's bed. The played hurricane again -- Chase loves storm things. A little before seven, everybody went downstairs to watch the Blues hockey game. Chase and Daddy played a little hockey before the game started, and fortunately, Chase won or he would have been in a bad mood. Nanaw stayed later than she'd planned, till about 8:30. She'd thought about going to Dollar Tree to get a Valentine for Chase, a Valentine card for his teacher, and a big Valentine bag to put his presents in. But she decided it was too dark and cold outside so she'll go tomorrow. The Blues beat the Blackhawks 5 to 1 so that's a good thing.

Friday, February 11, 2022

Once again, Chase and Nanaw did well about leaving early for school. Today they got there a moment before the principal Mr. Gregson came to stand by the front door to welcome the students. Chase had three tests today: religion (he got 22 out of 24, plus extra credit), social studies (10 out of 13) and reading (18 out of 20). When Nanaw picked Chase up, he said he had decided to stop wearing his mask today instead of waiting till Monday. He said he stopped wearing it because he's vaccinated, and even if he does get Covid it won't be as bad as if he wasn’t vaccinated. At Nanaw's house, Chase watched Curious George and then went outside to play hockey. He asked Nanaw to let him know when Jeopardy was on so he could come inside to watch it. He watched Jeopardy and then it was time to go home. Yesterday Nanaw asked Daddy to put together her Dirt Devil stick vacuum because she couldn't figure out how to do it. One of the pieces was missing, and Nanaw found it in the hall closet. When Nanaw took Chase home, she told Daddy she'd found the part to her vacuum and was able to put it on so he didn't have to do it. Mama wasn't there; she'd gone to Red Bud to have dinner with her friend Becky from work.

Thursday, February 10, 2022

When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, he said he didn't have any homework, just studying for three tests tomorrow. He had his spelling test today but didn't know what his grade was. On the phone with Mama, he said, "Don't hang up. I have something to tell you." He said that Dr. Jody came to their class today and gave them a water bottle, a travel toothbrush and toothpaste. He was very excited about the travel toothbrush and used it to brush his teeth when they got to Nanaw's house. He said he was going to eat his "healthy" snack, a granola bar Mama had packed for him. Nanaw is requiring a "healthy" snack each day before an "unhealthy" snack. For his "unhealthy" snack he had chips and pretzels. Nanaw found some questions about the Antarctic Journal for his reading test, and Chase practiced them. Nanaw sent the questions home with him so he could study them with Mama. For social studies, they did the questions at the end of each section and then did the crossword puzzle. Chase did well on the studying but not perfectly so Nanaw doesn't expect any 100% grades. They had fun studying together, and Chase didn't complain about it. Daddy and Chase were going to study religion in the evening.  

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Wednesday morning, Chase went looking through Nanaw's stuffed animals for penguins. He found three of them and had them join the stuffed penguins he'd brought. So it was sort of a penguin party. Even with the penguin party, Chase got to school in plenty of time.  When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, he told her a really cute story. His class went to the Book Fair today, and he took along $5.00 that he had in his book bag. But the Mario poster he wanted to buy cost $5.11. So the lady at the cash register paid the 11 cents out of her own money. Nanaw wanted them to stop at the Book Fair to see if the lady was still there so Nanaw could thank her and give her the 11 cents but Chase didn't want to go. At Nanaw's house, they studied his spelling words. Mama came to pick Chase up at 3:40 so they could go to the orthodontist to get his retainer fixed -- somehow it got bent. Nanaw forgot to take a picture of Chase, and she tried to get one or two or three on his way out the door. As you can see from the pictures below, Chase did not cooperate with Nanaw's photo shoot. 

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

There’s a big hoo-hah in Illinois, including Columbia, about masks in schools. At the moment, it’s a matter of choice. On Tuesday morning, Nanaw asked Chase if he was going to wear a mask at school, and he said yes. When Nanaw picked Chase up from school, he had his blessing bag with him. He said he was going to have Nanaw drive around and find somebody to give it to. Nanaw said she would do that. Chase said he has social studies homework and he did it on his Chromebook at Nanaw’s house. He said some of the kids wore masks and some didn’t. He had baseball practice and Mama picked him up at 4:15. Nanaw went to run errands and found someone by the Walmart stoplight to give the blessing bag to. She also gave him $20.