Singing

 My friend Conie was hosting an online Zoom event for her Biracial and Rural - - storytelling and community singing event.

https://www.givemn.org/story/Biracialandrural

My niece is not growing up rural, but she is growing up biracial and so Conie asked me to invite her and my sister-in-law too.  Everyone else on the Zoom were adults.  I figured my 10 year old niece may get bored, but is mature and at minimum would sit thru it.  

Not only did she sit thru it, after her response was, "That was fun."

"What did you like about it?" me.

"I liked the songs."

I did too. I realized as I sat beside her - I've done a wide variety of activities with my niece, but I don't think I've ever done any singing!  It was so fun to sing with her and it made me want to think of ways that we can sing more together.

I also asked her after, if she's experienced a feeling of "being different".  She said, "I'm kind of surprised when people think I only eat sushi everyday. We eat spaghetti too."

"Who thinks that?"

"Two people at school."

 My nephew also participated by putting on various costumes and dancing in the background.  I gave him a time out of the room at one point for being loud and distracting, but overall he kept his shnanagins quiet enough that we could still participate.

I'm glad also that I asked my sister-in-law about her sister before I left. She is going to Japan soon and it will be the first time since her sister died, so though I'm sure she is excited to see her family, I'm sure it will carry a great deal of grief too.  She responded that today was that sister's birthday.

I'm glad I asked.