A lot of these are things we can do without help, but we can't do all of them without any help. However, we're not looking for you to do things that you don't already enjoy though, so...
Let us know if there is something on this list that excites you!
💜💙💚💛💖
Research and Preparation Help
- Come over and install a hanging ceiling light in the girls' bedroom (they currently just have a floor lamp)
- Make a "St John Bat Signal" google group of people who are willing to help us when we need it. That way we can email out if there is something we need and if someone is available they can volunteer to help us :)
- Research options for securing trunk items in case of car accident
- Kid shows - research and create a spreadsheet of kid shows or family shows
- especially Spanish and Spanglish
- starring brown people, esp girls and women and queer people
- spreadsheet would ideally contain: show title, very brief description, where it can be watched (we have an apple tv, limited cable, hulu, netflix instant, amazon prime video, hbo go)
- Organization - come to our house to help us figure out how to organize better/use our space better AND/OR come help us actually accomplish that
- entry way - shoes, coats for adults and kids
- living room - couch area, charging cords, small tables - fitting an art table?
- bedrooms - finishing storage/closets, organizing clothes
- kitchen - mostly storage organization issues
- bathrooms - install towel hook (already purchased)
- De-Junking
- come over and help us go through things we don't need in various parts of the house
- take our unwanted stuff to donation centers, the dump, and elsewhere
Housework and Pet Help
Notes: We have a team of cleaning people who do the floors, counters, bathrooms, etc but we have other house work items that we would love help with. Especially in our first year or so, we need to be spending as much time as possible directly caring for and playing with the kids, so any house work you can help us with will allow us more time to help them attach and heal.
- Be part of a list of people I can reach out to for dog sitting and/or cat sitting
- dog sitting would be more for daytime things like trainings we have to attend or court dates
- cat sitting would be if we are gone overnight (probably further in the future)
- Mail Elimination
- we were devastated when PaperKarma went out of business, and we are constantly drowning in a sea of mail, including for people who haven't lived here for five years, including new(!!) subscriptions to magazines for people who haven't lived here for five years
- take a pile of mail from us and attempt to somehow get us off the mailing list
- Bay Area Christmas Housing for my mom
- My mom is visiting for a week this Christmas and we don't know yet if the kids will be settled enough for her to stay at our house. Do you live on the peninsula and have a room she could stay in? Alternatively, will you be gone over Christmas and are willing to let her stay at your place? (note: She is allergic to cats and some dogs). This would be really helpful for keeping our kids on their normal routines
- Laundry, Dishes, Errands
- come over and help us deal with undoubtedly an enormous pile of laundry to fold, an enormous pile of dirty dishes to run through the dishwasher, and/or various errands
- I'm still working on this list....let me know if you have any suggestions not listed!
Self Education
- Read "What Am I Feeling?" by John Gottman (very short book and we have extra copies if you are local) so that you can eventually come help with babysitting
- Learn about adoption microaggressions and educate others (spoiler: don't tell our daughters that they are lucky)
Registry
http://a.co/9X9r1jv
Cultural Help
- Music - Curate playlist(s) (on Apple Music?) of music:
- by Mexican/Chicano artists
- in Spanish
- in English
- in Spanglish
- Mexican/Chicano traditional music
- Mexican/Chicano pop music
- Mexican/Chicano EDM/techno/dance music
- Mexican/Chicano kids music (especially traditional kid songs and lullabies in Spanish)
- NOTE: we have a subscription to apple music. Is there a way for someone to create a list there and share it with us...? Need research
- Books - Research, identify, and/or buy children's books (please let us vet them first!)
- prefer hardbound
- love used books
- prefer non-branded books (not Frozen, My Little Pony, etc)
- prefer books with high picture to words ratio
- especially in need of bilingual books in both Spanish and English, and those in just Spanish
- Art - Research, identify, make, and/or buy art (please let us vet these as well since we will be putting them on our walls!)
- especially prefer from Mexican/Chicano artists
- depicting brown people
- depicting traditional and modern Mexican styles
- Food - make us food or snacks! (NOTE: no cilantro, or at least a safe batch without)
- Mexican and Mexican-inspired dishes are what we need most!
- traditional food from other cultures as well (no cilantro 😊)
- even just making food for us once will be super helpful!
- Toys - research, identify, and/or buy (please check with us first!)
- dolls that are brown, especially dolls with wavy or straight black hair
- other toys that have brown kids/people (eg this type of toy only has white kids 😒)
- traditional Mexican toys
- Role Models
- we need people in our kids' lives that look like them
- we need people in our kids' lives that don't look like them (we've got it pretty well covered on the white people front), including people of different races, gender identities, ability/disability statuses
- Spanish Speakers (I speak enough Spanish to get by and we are both working hard on our Spanish)
- come speak Spanish with us and our kids
- be part of a list of people we can ask for help with translations, common slang, or nuanced meanings
- Other - let me know if you have other ideas not listed here that you are interested in!
