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As I sit in my room painting a picture, particles of blue and brown pastels fall on my lap creating speckles of pigments that glisten as the white light caresses their splendor. A sea of blue and brown sweep up my emotions like the waves of memory, the colors of the earth and the ocean take me away. The colors take me back seven months, when I decided to volunteer at a Daycare center. I sit reminiscing about the moments that I spent with the children of the Daycare center. As I reminisce about how wonderful it was to see them grow, I suddenly realize that I myself have grown. I grew as the children grew, during the months when the sun brings nature to life, when flowers blossom with confidence and strength.
At first, I did not consider what I had gained from that experience. I thought of it as a volunteer opportunity where I assisted the teachers at the Daycare but now I realize that that experience was so much more. As I sat in the waiting room of the Daycare center patiently anticipating a new challenge I felt nervous since I did not know what to expect form the children because as the youngest child in my family I was never around small children. When I met the kids, I doubted my ability to handle them when they misbehaved. I never considered patience to be so important until I met the children of the Daycare center. Even though my mother always tells me how patient I am when I help her with her ESL homework, I never believed that that was true until now that I reminisce about how I assisted the teachers with the “Toddlers” and “Waddlers.” The children threw temper tantrums, fought with one another and even insulted me but I always stayed calm. I figure I acquired my patience from doing what I love, drawing and painting for continuous hours. Even though I was able to stay calm in stressful times, I was very quiet; I barely interacted with the children.
When I was introduced to the “Waddlers,” I realized how much the kids needed me to speak to them, as children need to be mentally stimulated. Even though I struggled to come out of my shell I knew I had to in order to enhance their learning, so I began to speak to them in English and Spanish and I read to them countless amounts of books. When they smiled and repeated a word, I knew I had done my job and felt content with myself. I knew I had helped them grow when every week a new “Waddler” began to say its first words, but I had not realized how much I had changed. From the quiet, shy girl that arrived, I changed and grew into the talkative, confident girl that I am today.
My personal growth and patience aided me through difficult times. I knew that taking care of twenty children was going to be an enormous responsibility when I decided to volunteer but I did not realize how much work it was going to be. After school began, I volunteered at the Daycare center in the afternoons, thinking that nothing was going to change but a few things did. I arrived at the Daycare tired and starved as I had undertaken a new change in diet; I had become a Vegan after watching a movie about the abuse and cruelty towards animals in farms. I refused to eat the school lunch for its contents and I arrived at the Daycare in a state of hunger. Yet I managed to forget my physical state and I took care and interacted with the kids without becoming annoyed or upset and I always tried to preserve my calmness.
From my experience as a Daycare volunteer, I learned that patience is very important, not just when taking care of kids but also in our everyday life. As I sit here in my bedroom gazing at my finished painting, I know that my experience as a Daycare volunteer was special but most special of all is knowing how much I’ve grown, from a quiet girl now I’m as loud as my finished pastel painting, a painting that tells the world who is Janine Robinson.