I didn't know Olivia at all until the summer of 2015. I had just started working as a hostess at a local Mexican Restaurant when I met her father, a middle aged man who was everyone's favorite manager. He was always on the flood, cracking jokes, asking about everyone's day, and always making sure every employee was happy as well as the customers. About two weeks into my job, he told me that he and his wife had a daughter that was five. He told me that his wife worked full-time and he worked part-time so he could spend time with her as much as he could. When he and his wife were both at work, his daughter Olivia would stay at home with her grandmother whom she called "Mimi". A month later, my manager told me his mother-in-law would no longer be in town for the remainder of the summer, and asked me if I knew anyone who was good with kids as well as trustworthy, and if they could look after Olivia three times a week. The next day, I decided to volunteer for the position since I had plenty of free time to give and was also desperate for extra money.

I had babysat since I was eleven, so I knew how to take care of kids very well. However, I never really enjoyed it. The kids always got on my nerves and I always found myself counting down the hours until the parents arrived and I could go home. Although I knew this quite well, I decided an extra fifteen hours a week nannying one little girl at ten bucks an hour wasn't so bad and was damn good money. The very first day I arrived at their town home. It was cold and gloomy outside, and I was looking foreword to watching a movie for the duration of the afternoon with Olivia.

When I first walked in, Olivia sat on the couch looking at me with her big brown eyes. She had on a blue fairy dress from the Disney Store and a bright purple hairband covered in sequins. When her father introduced me to her, she ran into her room crying. As her father gathered his things to go to work, Olivia begged him to stay, and refused to let him leave. I could tell he was nervous because it was the first time anyone but family had looked after Olivia before, and as she pleaded with him I noticed tears begin to weld up in his eyes. I was used to this, kids always hated when their parents left. So I went into her room and brought out a little tea set that I noticed was neatly put in a box at the corner of her room. She looked at the tea set while clinging onto her father's leg, and automatically stopped crying. Slowly she let go of him and walked over to me while I set up the delicate china silverware and cups on the carpet. While she was entranced by the tea set, her father quietly made his escape out the door. We went a whole ten minutes without her noticing until she realized her father was gone and she began to cry hysterically. She called me "stranger" and "scary lady" for two hours, and bericaded herself in her bedroom before she finally passed out on the floor and I was able to get in. When her mother got home I couldn't have been more relieved. I told myself as I walked out the door that I would find someone else to nanny her, that there was no way in hell I could do this for another five hours two days later, and again two days after that.

The next day my manager texted me and asked me to give her another chance. He assured me that she wouldn't behave the way she had earlier, and that she just needed to get used to me before she would "loosen up". So, very reluctantly, the next day I drove back over to their town home and gave it all another shot. This time, Olivia was dressed in her pajamas, which was a matching hot pink top and bottom with little monkeys all over it. When she saw me she hid behind her father, but continued to stare at me as he gathered his keys to go. Olivia's father gave her a long hug goodbye and assured her that her mother would be home before dinner time. She didn't cry as he opened the door to go. Instead, she wimpered quietly before walking over to the couch and burying her head into a pillow. Of course I began to freak out, hoping that this time wouldn't be like the last. So I went to the kitchen and offered her a snack. She didn't respond. I went to the TV and offered to watch a movie. She said that she hated watching TV. Finally, when all of my original techniques failed, I asked if she wanted to take her dog for a walk. When I said that her head sprang from her pillow and she shouted "Yeah! That's a great idea!" She walked to her room and put on a pair of sparkly Sketchers and grabbed the dog's leash. I asked her if she wanted to change into daytime clothes before we left, but she began to fuss and cry so I let her keep her pajamas on. Then, she went to the closet and put on a bright blue hat with fake feathers and jewels all over it.

So there we went, walking around the entire neighborhood with her light up sparkly Sketchers, monkey pajamas, and a blue feathered hat. Anyone who drove by gave us the most peculiar look, but I was just glad I got her to do something with me without crying. As time went on, Olivia and I became closer and closer. She stopped asking when her mom was going to be home, and stopped wimpering every single time her father left. And as we spent more time together, I began to notice small things about Olivia.

First of all, the girl doesn't like snacks unless it's plain white bread with strawberries on the side. She hates chocolate chip cookies, and will only eat them if the chocolate chips are taken out. Her favorite color changes every twenty minutes or so, but it's typically something with "shiny" or "sparkly" at the beginning of it. One time she told me her favorite color was "sparkly brownish green" which concerned me a bit but she told me that "every color deserves love" so I had no choice but to go along with it. Also, Olivia hates TV. She cannot, for the life of her, sit down and watch a show. No idea why, but every time I tried to put her in front of the TV for a bit so I could take a break she would throw the biggest temper tantrum until I asked her if she wanted to use some stickers. And that leads me to my final thing; Her absolute favorite activity is putting stickers on cardboard (or her dog, Buddy). An activity that kind of broke my wallet because every time we went to Michaels I could never find it in my heart to tell her "no" when she wanted more stickers.

For the next few months I would spend fifteen hours a week with Olivia, and not once did I ever wish time would go by faster. We went on many adventures together, we went to parks and played on the swings, we went to the pond and fed the ducks, we went to the library and would read books (well, I would read to her while she sat on my lap and pointed out all the pictures), we would go swimming at the pool, we did everything. And among all of that, I can still remember the time that I completely fell for Olivia. We were at the pool and she was absolutely terrified of all the other kids. So bad to the point that she refused to talk to anyone when they spoke to her, and wouldn't even go in the water unless I would go in with her. During an adult swim I decided to try and teach her how to swim. I did what my Dad did with me when I was young, and had her stand on the edge of the semi-deep end while I stood in the middle. I told her that on the count of three she needed to jump and I would catch her. She absolutely refused, saying that she was worried I wouldn't catch her, and that she just wanted to stay in the shallow end. I didn't want to push her too much, but I finally got her to try it once. When she jumped into the pool, she swam to me as fast as she could and I picked her up almost immediately after she jumped in. As I picked her up and she pushed her wet hair out of her eyes, she looked at me and said "you caught me!" For the remainder of the day all she wanted to do was practice jumping into the water while I caught her, and for the next four hours that's all we did.

About a month before I was about to leave for school, I took Olivia on a hike near my house. It was a beautiful but very hot day, so I brought plenty of sunblock and water for the both of us. As we hiked up the trail she started moaning and complaining about how she wanted to go home the entire way. "This is not a very fun game, Peyton". She said this about twenty times before I finally decided it wasn't worth it anymore and that we should turn around. As we walked down the hill, Olivia slipped on the red gravel and cut her knee. She looked at the fresh cut and then at her chalked hands and began to scream and cry hysterically. I had no idea what to do, so I scooped her up and ran with her in my arms to the car and drove as fast as I could back to her house. I assured her it was going to be okay and that I would bandage her right on up. She continued to cry until I carried her into the house and helped her wash out the wound. When I finally put a bandaid on her knee, I took her into her bedroom where I rocked her in her rocking chair until she stopped crying. And then, out of nowhere, she looked up at me with those big brown eyes and said "I love you, Peyton. You're my sister". And at that exact moment my heart melted and I knew that she had forever changed my life.

The very last day I nannied Olivia before I had to move back up to school, I was extremely emotional. We took Buddy for a walk around her neighborhood, and all she wanted to wear that day was that blue fairy princess dress from the Disney store, multiple bands of beads around her neck, light up Sketchers, and her silver tiara. As we walked around the block, she held my hand and refused to let go for any situation. Even as I had to clean up after Buddy during the walk she refused to let my hand go. As we made a pillow fort in her living room, I could hear the front door open and her mother walked in. Olivia began to cry, shouting "You're coming back tomorrow, right?" As I held her and gave her the biggest hug I could, tear welded in my eyes and my heart completely sank. I couldn't bare saying goodbye to the person who had completely changed my summer and my life. I couldn't bare not seeing which wild outfit she would wear that day, or listen to the funny things she would say. No longer would I have all of my clothes covered in sparkly stickers, or juice on my pants from her clumsy spilling habits.

That summer my life was changed by a five year old named Olivia. She hates chocolate chip cookies unless the chocolate chips are taken out of them, and is absolutely obsessed with sparkly stickers. She taught me that every color imaginable deserves love, and that TV shows are for old people. She is my little unique fairy princess, and she has become the closest thing I have ever had to a daughter or a little sister.