Mid-Week Kid Chat: Genevieve Powers (my 9 yr old niece).

the actress and singer. She was the star of her play. She was Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka. Was that exhilarating? It was so fun. The only problem is we only got to do one show, But next time we get to do three shows. So that's a lot of memorizing and work for only one show. Are you nervous when you're up there? Like the first when you're backstage and about to go on stage, Like the first few seconds, you're just like, am I in the right scene or I in the right costume? What am I supposed to do?

But then once you get on and I was like, oh, this is easy. We practiced this a hundred times. So you love performing. I love the everyone what goes on inside of you when you're about to perform. Um, At first, I'm very nervous, and when once I get on stage is just like easy and fun. And then I and then once it's over, I'm so sad that it's over because it was so fun. Do you like the costumes in the makeup? Yeah, we've been doing some makeup here

in quarantine. Oh, everyone listening, we've been quarantine being together? Yes? What has quarantine life been like? Here at the farm in Texas with your favorite Anti and uncle? See seeing Mike. I'm just kidding. She has tons of amazing aunts and uncles. I'm just saying I'm the favorite because I'm right here in front of you. Whichever one I'm closest to is my favorite. I love that philosophy. Um, what has quarantine life been like? Has this been scary for you? How

have you What are your thoughts on the coronavirus? Well? I like to be home, Like all the time. Whenever my parents asked me if I want to go out to eat, I'm just like, can we eat at home? I love to be home. And so basically this is just like my dream because we're all home together. It's really fun. What do you like about being home? Um, it's just like all my stuff and I get to

like take what I want to do. So like if instead of like going to a restaurant and eating dinner, I can like stay home then eat dinner and I don't have to like get dressed or whatever. I can just like eat in my pajamas. If I want to pja life all day every day, Yes, you actually want to? You do alpha today? Where do you think you're going?

I have my pajamason under it. Okay, just checking because I have only worn sweatpants and stretch pants since we've been here, saying, so, talk to me about what you like to do at the farm, because you are you are a city girl and a farm girl. I feel like, um at the farm. I don't know. I really like to cook. I like that we get to cook at home a lot, because I don't normally get to cook at home either. You do cook a lot, do cook a lot. I bake. I make brownies and cookies and breakfast.

But here so Mike and I made mikey geez, it's like McDonald's, like Mickey D's, but it's Mikey cheese. So we make breakfast for everybody, and I'm the beneficiary of that. It is a wonderful breakfast sandwich with egg cheese, baker and I mean with some ketchup. Yeah, we made breakfast soonderjuice this morning. Well, Mike, you made those so our motto as we even feed the babies because we feed Sunny in the morning, So I mean it's a pretty great little thing. Have you loved being a little mama

to Sunny? Yes, she's my favorite. She's so cute. I mean you literally just do everything for her. You hold her, you change your diaper, you feed her, you tote her around on you and that little carrier. What um, what goes through your brain with a baby? Because not all kids love babies, but you just love babies and you love being with Sunny. Like what are you thinking? Well,

I think they're cute. And what's fun is like I'm in the charge of them kind of, but not in a like you are my servants, like a fun way, so like I can let her crawl on the ground and watch her if I want to, or I can hold her and carry around, or I can feed her she's really cute. Is it fun to be in charge? I like to be in charge. What are some things that you like to be in charge of? Um? I like to be in charge of my eating because I am a very very picky eater. I wonder where you

got that from your mother? So you're a very picky eater. So you don't want what do you not like to eat? Um? Well, most of the things I don't like to eat. I haven't tried yet, but so you know what you do like. I'm pretty brave, but not a drinking This will be probably surprising to most people, but I don't like cheese. Actually very surprising everyone eats. Oh. I also don't like milkshakes. That's also very even a kid, if you don't like milkha I am the type of person that likes uh.

I A scupa vanilla I screwed, a cookie, a hot brownie, a cheer it on top, and hot chocolate sauce. That's that's that's my perfect dessert. I'm into that. Okay, So you were talking about being brave. What does being brave mean to you? And why do you like to be brave? I like to be raved because if you're not braved. You can't find out cool stuff. That's a good way of looking at it. So what do you mean by that?

Like you wanna like if I see So we have this little river, and so there's like a crack in the side of it where there are all these rattle snakes that lived there, and where is this terrifying? So there were normally about three snakes in there, like mostly rattle snakes. We've only seen like three rattle snakes the whole time we've been here, So so I like to look in there and like see if I can see cool stuff, because like you could see if a snake's

eating a spider or like doing funny stuff. And then also I was about to jump into a pond and I saw a water moccasin slither into the pond and I was so freaked out. And I haven't gotten in since. And normally I'm in there like seven but I haven't gotten in once. The strip. I mean, I'm definitely afraid of watermarks. I am They're deadly. Actually, so they are deadly. I was like three ft away from him. We were definitely not social. Distancing from the water has so obviously

when you're being brave you're also being safe. Yes, obviously, I do not like to do stuff that I'm okay if I could get If the worst thing that take it happened to me is get a few cuts or bumps and bridges. I've gotten a bunch of stinging nettle. Thankfully, I have one poison ivy yet. But poison ivy doesn't really think me that bad there. I'm not allergic to it or I just haven't gotten in it that much. But if it's life threatening, like a water moccasin, I

am out like I would have jumped in there. If it was like I would have jumped in the pond if it was just like, I don't know, Actually most things that are in water are pretty dangerous. Because it was like I was about to say, a piranha, but piranhas are very dangerous, and I would not have jumped in if there was a pha. So you're a water baby. You love the water. You know. The first day that you came up from the hospital, my dad dunked me in the bathtub and your mom was like, what are

you doing. I mean, he said when you were born, he said, all I want is a water baby. Because he loves the ocean, and swimming. Do you just love the water? I love the What do you love so much about the water? So the funny thing is I love the ocean, but I'm a pool girl and like pool a lot better than the ocean for some reason.

What do you like about a pool? Um? Probably just like you don't normally get to sunburn, Like on the beach, it's like hot, and if you try to lie down, all the stands sixtyear back, and then when you get in the water it's like sounds so weird, but like it's like salty. I know that this ocean has salt, but I'm just more of a pool person. Okay, I get that. I get that. So one fun thing that we've been doing that you and your dad and your mom invented was tubing down the river and the rapids

so fun. So you're hopping at this damn and then you go down there's another damn, but you don't want to go over the damn because if you go over, like you too could flip over and then you get stuck in the rotation of the damn. So you go to the side and it's like down this big waterfall and it's really fun. It's actually kind of intense. It's pretty intense, Jenny, even before guy, She's like, Okay, now you lift up on your tube. Here, keep your feet

in here. Here come the rapids. Hang on. Mikey and I are like, but then there's this one spot where it's like, it's not exactly it looks like rappids from a distance, but it's not exactly rapids because it's just like waves. And so it's like this, it's kind of a wall of waves. It's like one ft high normally, and you just like you can't go into it, so you go like up and then you get bounce stuff into the air and then go down, and then bounce

stuff into the air and go down. That's just a lot less exhilarating than it looks like, or it sounds like. It's probably scarier than it looks scarier than it is. Yeah, And that's kind of a disappointment to me, because you love I love adrenaline, Russia, adrenaline rushes, and water, so I like normally, uh, fresh water, then salt water first of all, because most dangerous animals like sharks and other stuff, like your grandfather was attacked by a shark in the

Mamas oh, yes, he was. Yeah, so he got bitten by a shark or in the face and then the knee. And so I never take naps, like I'm not really in that person, but for some reason, I happened to be taking a nap that day while he got bitten by the shark. And when I woke up, everyone was just like okay, So they don't know what happened. But Lucky got a little scrape from coral. And then I went upstairs and I was like, that's not coral, Like, that's a big scrape is knee? Like a chunk of

his knee was out. I was like, wow, that must be some big coral. So you like freshwater first? Then yes? Then because water first, and then fresh water and then saltwater. Okay, So talk to me about family because you love your family. What does family mean to you and why is family

so important to you? Um? Well, families very important to me because um, I don't know, I just love my family because like everyone's so fun and it's always fun when we're around family, and so I like to view a family because I don't know, I just feel like it's good to view with family. Do they make you feel safe? Do they make you feel loved? What does family make you feel either loved or excited or happy?

That's awesome? We have great family. We do have a great family, and you have great grandparents on both sides too. You have a lot of people that love you. What does that make you feel as a nine year old knowing that you are surrounded by love? How does that make you feel? Um? Happy and rateful? And I don't know. I just love being with family, like I would rather be quarantine with family than quarantine by myself. Oh my gosh, me too. Same. So tell me about your mom and dad,

because you have to of the coolest parents ever. I must say they are probably um what makes them good parents? They're great parents because they're always nice. If I have like any questions, they'll always have an answer, unless it's like a crazy question like do trees grow legs or something like that, but uh, yeah, they always have answers to my questions and they always tell me the true and they're just really good. What is that? Why is that important to you that they tell you the truth?

What does that make you feel like that you can trust them or what does that make you feel? It makes you feel like I can trust them, and it makes me feel like they know that I won't like do anything bad with what they tell me or something like that because I won't, and I like that. I'm glad that they trust me because I wouldn't do anything bad. So you'll both sort of trust each other. You can ask them any question you have. They'll tell you the

truth and they trust you with information. So that makes you probably feel empowered. Huh, yeah, that makes you feel good. So what are what are what are school like? As a nine year old? Like? What are kids like these days?

So I feel like whenever? Like So at my school, they break it up into the they we have to well, we recently moved campuses, so we have a lower village where it's like pre K three to um pre grade to kindergarten, which is actually only two grades now that I realize it, but we have like a bunch of teachers, so it's like like for you guys, Oh, they actually recently added preschool, so it's like preschool to kindergarten, and then in the upper village it's the first grade to

fourth grade, and then you get into the big building where it's fifth grade through high school, so you are in third grade, So what would you say are the best parts about third grade? Third grade and the hardest parts about third grade? So the best part about third grade is when you get to third grade, it's like either you make better relationship with people or you make worse relationships with people. Break that down a little bit.

I feel like most of my relationships with people have gotten better because, like I like when new kids come to school because I like to change up my friend group a little bit. But then I always add like some of my other friends in two that's great. So you love keeping your solid friends that you've always had and you love meeting new people. Are kids nice for the most part? Or kids pick on each other? I

feel like, so there's like two groups of people. They are like like there are a bunch of different groups. They're like a group of people who like play games in one section of recess. There's like a group of boys who play games. In one section there's a group of girls who There's like three things. There's girls and boys that play games. There's like boys and then there's girls. Where do you like to hang out the girls? Normally I hang out with Like I have three good friends

that I normally hang out with. But like I am friends with everybody. There are people pretty nice to each other, uh normally, Like, well, um, if you go kind of into someone else's group, it's kind of like really awkward because like there are people who are we basically have our normal groups, and so it's kind of awkward if you go into someone else's group because it's just like aren't you supposed to be in your group? It's just kind of awkward and that trim things kind of get

a little weird. But for the most part, everyone's really nice. So what is it? How do you deal with feelings that feel awkward? Because I know, even as an adult, when I feel awkward, it makes me feel oh, I don't know, like as a nine year old, and these are probably the first time you're feeling those feelings. What do you do when you feel awkward? Um? I first things, first, I do I try to see if there's a way to make things not awkward but to still achieve what

I'm trying to do. And then if that doesn't work out, which in normally doesn't but sometimes it does. Um. I just normally, so they're like a bunch of groups or friends that I just like go back to because I know that we're just like all great friends and it's not it never gets awkward really, So then I just go back and do stuff with my friends. So you don't take it too personal. Not really, that's nice. So,

but you like to make everyone feel good about themselves. You, I feel like you're you always want everyone to feel like they're wanted and accepted. Yeah, why is that important to you? So me and another friend some normally three friends, but we walk around recess and we like see people if any of our friends are like playing by themselves, really just like come hang with us. Like we just basically walk around recess talking about stuff and then just like see if people want to join us and stuff

like that. Now, why do you want to do that? That's so sweet? What goes on your brain that says, let me go look for kids who don't have a friend to play with? Well, most everyone has a friend to play with at school. But the most everyone that doesn't have a friend to play with at school, um is actually wanting to be in souls. Like some days I'm just like, um, I'm going to go do this by myself. And so I'm not sad. I'm not ashamed.

I'm just gonna go play by myself because I want to a long time because like most people, I'm pretty sure nobody ever plays by themselves. But we're basically walking around the groups to see if any of our friends that go into different groups want to come back in our group and play with us. So why do you need alone time? Um, I I'm not one of the people who need, like like I don't have I don't

have to have like all these friends. Like if one of my friends just doing something that I don't want to do, I'm just like I don't try to like change myself to do what they want to do. I just want to do what I want to do. So how do you not feel that pure pressure? I guess, well, I mean I don't really. Sometimes I might, but I

try not to. I just like I kind of ignore it and then most of it, so most of the time, I realized that there's like so much of their stuff to do at recess because we have like a slack line and a goggle bal pit. I don't know if you don't gogglebalpit, google ball is, but it's kind of like I don't know what this is, but my mom says, it's kind of like prison ball. It's basically you're in a pit and you uh, you can't use your knees and under you you hit the ball around and if

the ball touches your knee under then you're out. And then we also play free stag the goga ballpit, which is really fun, so you're always aware that there's other things to do and you don't have to do what one person wants to do. Yeah, because our reciss thing is great because we have like a lot of things to do, and then there's also this little spot so

it's outside and we we moved in first. All we really had was one gogo bullpit and well actually we started off with just a box of jump ropes and balls and footballs and like cones and who whoops, and they're just like, grab what you want. This is all we have. And so my friends and I would get the hula hoops, like a bunch of a group of

girls would get the hula hoops. And we make these things sold who huts, which is where it's like five who loops and you put one hula hoop on the ground and then you put three inside the who hoop like a triangle kind of, and then you put one on the top so it holds it together. And then we have like the queen of the hulas, which is the girl who sits inside the hula hut because the hula huts pretty small. And then like the rest of the people are guards because all the boys try to

knock down the girls who huts. That was a big thing last year. We had all these different hula huts and like all the boys are trying to knock them down. Boys are always trying to knock things down. How do you deal with smelly boys? What do you do when you have a stinky boy that's trying to be rude?

How do you tell him to be nice? So first thing I do is so you can't really change boys, Like you can't say hey, let's be best friends and try to be nice because that doesn't really work normally, And so normally I just try to ignore them, or I um when we do the hula huts, so like a bunch of people are guards. They're like two people that I like fanning the queen and like beyond the hulah, just in life, how do you deal with boys who

are trying to be yea so like hula. It's kind of the way to describe it because like the boys were trying to come knock it over about so the boys don't know how strong the girls are. And so okay, we were. We recently ended our nutrition unit in science, so we did a kinstry unit and then a nutrition unit, and so I love nutrition. And so we were doing exercise and we were doing planks and all the like, all the ballerinas and gymnasts were just like, oh, this

is easy. But than the boys are just like all on the floor like pancakes and they're like, how are you doing this? Girl power? Yeah? So tell me what when you think of the word love, what do you think of? What does it mean to you? Uh? I think goth family and close friends. When you think of the word fun, what do you think of? I think of like playing with family and just like doing fun stuff. So what's fun is my mom and I do fun stuff like petticures and makeup. We have spaw days, like

on our birthdays. We give each other's spaw days, and we do like each other's makeup, and we do our nails and we just like do face mask. It's so funny. We set it off in the bathroom and we have like cucumbers on our eyes and tells it's so fun.

So that's what I do with my mom. But then my dad we really we actually went over so there's this chimney and we went over there to just an old abandoned chimney over here, and so we looked around found it and we've like a butterknife and a stove thing, and then we found this big concrete slab for a house and so and then we found like a bed frame and then a bunch of old like refrigerator parts.

And what is success to you? Mm hmm, great question. Well, success has like a bunch of different categories, like like success in school or success with friendships or success with family. There are lots of different successes, so which one should all of them? There are a lot three main success in school is to me, it's not exactly trying to get straight a's. So at veritass my school, we have Veritas rocks and so it's r c K s ours respect for authority. Oh as others are important. See is

corrections accepted and learned from it? Then case keep yourself prepared and as to seek excellence so I normally try to just ever I did my best, and if I did my best and there's one problem that like I knew I couldn't do, or like that we didn't study for too hard, I'm okay with that because I tried my best and I did it as best as I could. Love that. I have a question. What makes a good

friend a good friend? Great question? Um, someone you can tell if you have, like something that you need to get off your chest, you can just tell it to him. It's just like someone who like won't be mean or won't laugh, like if you're like I had of a giant or like what trying to think of it? Yeah, I have a giant temple on the back of my neck and that's why I wore my hair down today. They won't be like, let me see, Oh what is it? What color is it? They're just like, uh, okay, cool.

So you can tell things that maybe make you feel a little nervous or uncomfortable or insecure. Yeah that's great. Okay, g I'm gonna wrap up my podcast. I always ask this one question, what do you want people to know?

I want people to know that they should be happy with what they have and that if you have a good friend, even though they might like they might have something better than you have, or they might like they just might be more popular than you, that you can tell them stuff that you wouldn't want to tell them, even because a good friend is someone who you can tell your secrets to and like, well, not exactly secrets, just like personal things, personal stuff. I love that, Genevieve.

Oh well, I have just loved getting to quarantine with you. It's really fun. You're really really fun and really special and awesome. It's really cute too, and you're the best. We call you the Kazante cousinant, the best Kazante little Mama that ever was. We'll stay sweet as you always are. I love you so much. By