My Sweet Ahlanna (A Story for Ahlanna)

MY SWEET AHLANNA
By: Kay Olds

Most of my life, I wanted more than anything to be a Mother. I wanted to have 6 children, but I wanted to have twin boys, twin girls and a twin boy and girl. Wouldn’t that be ideal? The Lord had a different idea for me, and He gave me two; one girl and one boy. I thought it was the happiest time of my life.
Then the world changed for me, the day I found out that I was going to be a Grandmother. Your own children are so wonderful and special and such a blessing, but to have Grandchildren is somehow magical. It is as though God Himself reaches down and hands you a little piece of Heaven!
We found out that we were expecting a girl, and I imagined that she would have beautiful thick black hair like her Mother, and beautiful dark blue eyes with gold flecks, like her Grandpa Henry. But no! She had very little hair, and it was light like her Dad’s and her eyes were beautiful hazel, like her Dad’s.
Ahlanna Lee Olds arrived on December 8, 1998, and she was the most beautiful and the sweetest baby in the whole world. I set up a nursery for her in her Dad’s former bedroom and I had it decorated so cute for her. For some reason, she didn’t like it in there. I had a beautiful white crib for her, but as soon as we laid her down, she would wake up and cry. A dear friend of mine had loaned me a beautiful antique little tiny crib, so we tried that. NOPE! She wanted no part of it! She would sometimes sleep in her beautiful bassinette, but not often. One day I was folding clothes and I looked down at the wicker basket and thought maybe she would like that, so I padded it with a pillow, draped it with an afghan, then put her favorite blanket over it and laid her down in it, and that precious baby went right off to sleep! And that is where she slept until she outgrew it.
Her next favorite place to sleep, if not in someone’s arms, was on my Mother’s bed. There is a big sliding glass door in that room and it opens onto the patio. The reflections from the sun on the pool water would seem to dance on the ceiling and she would watch it until she fell asleep.
I bought her a bouncy activity chair and she would jump and bounce in it for hours. I think she had some of the strongest legs any baby ever had.
It was fun watching her grow. She learned to do all the things babies do. She learned to roll over, to sit up, to crawl, and to walk. She loved to ride her tricycle and her Barbie car, and to swing, skate, and jump rope, but her favorite thing was to play in the dirt. She also loved helping me feed the ducks and the birds.
When she was indoors, she loved to play with her kitchen and to be a Mommy to her babies and she was a wonderful Mother. In the real kitchen she would help us to wash dishes, and we made eggs and pancakes for breakfast, and she would wear her little apron and get a small pad of paper and a pencil and she would take everyone’s order then bring them their food. Some days she would make food with her play dough and she would serve it to us from her tea tray. I think she may just own a restaurant when she grows up!
Her next favorite thing was being in the swimming pool. She was only 5 months old the first time I put her in it and with the help of the floaties and a swim suit with a life ring inside, she could swim the whole length of the pool and back several times. My Mom didn’t know how to swim and she was very afraid of the water, and she used to nearly panic when I would let her do that. I can swim though and I stayed right there with her. Now she knows how to swim very well and she dives in and reminds me of a beautiful mermaid when she swims.
One of the funniest things she did was to pick up the telephone and walk around with it to her ear, and she would chatter up a storm and then throw her head back and laugh. She could not talk in our language yet, only in own version, so it was very funny to us. My Mom noticed that she was imitating me. I was always talking to one of my best friends on the phone, and she made me laugh so much, so that is what Ahlanna would do.
During potty training time, she would sometimes sit for long periods of time, so I kept a clipboard with a crossword puzzle book in the bathroom, and I would sit with her and put on my little bifocal glasses and give her a book to look at or crayons and a coloring book, and I would do my puzzles. One day when I went in there, she was sitting with my clipboard and had my glasses on and she was busily circling the letters and words! I kept that crossword puzzle book! I’ll show it to her when she is older.
She was nine months old when her cousin Liam was born. Liam Daniel Joseph McCloy. She called him Lee Lee for a very long time. When she learned to say his whole name, he was Lium Danel Dosef DeBoy! She loved that baby with all her heart, and I will never forget the look of awe on her face when she saw him for the first time. It was though she was looking down at an angel. She really thought he was her baby. She wanted to hold him and change him and feed him and burp him. She was an excellent little Mother.
We went to lots of hockey games and we would bring both of them to the games and lots of people thought they were twins. They both were so well behaved no matter where we took them. And they sang and danced all the time. We took them to Disneyworld when Ahlanna was 2 years old, and everyday I would ask her what was her favorite thing about Disney and her eyes would light up and she’d say “fireworks!”
Ten months after Liam was born, Madison Ann Olds was born. Ahlanna was in heaven! Two babies to take care of. She loved Madison with a fierce protectiveness. She wanted to do everything for her. But Madi had a mind of her own and she thought she was as big as Ahlanna and Liam and she wanted to do it herself with no help from anyone!
Sometimes I would have Ahlanna on one knee and Liam on the other, with both of them holding Madison! Never before has any baby ever received so many hugs and kisses! She would help me push Madi in her stroller out on the driveway. Later when they grew up a little, Ahlanna would ride her tricycle and Liam and Madison would drive the cars, and Lanna would pretend to be a police officer and she would stop Madi and Liam and ask for their drivers’ licenses and proof of insurance, and she wrote lots of tickets and took them off to jail, where they would always escape and run from her so she would have to do it all over again.
The kids loved being in the pool, and they played several games while we were in the pool. One of Ahlanna’s favorites was to play like she was the evil queen and she would search for us and when she found us she would throw us in the dungeon. The big black birds that were always around our yard, were the King’s guards and if they saw us they would go to the queen and tell her where we were. Another game was that she was a mad mermaid and she would cast a spell on us and then take us to her secret cave and hold us as her prisoners. Madison would always be the good mermaid and she would sing and make the evil Ahlanna go to sleep so we could escape. Sometimes Ahlanna was a shark and she would chase us all around the pool.
On her first day of school, she was the happiest little girl I had ever seen! She was so excited she sang all the way to school. I usually brought her to school every day and picked her up when it was over. She would laugh and sing and dance all the way to her classroom and then all the way to the car. She loved school so very much and she made very good grades.
Lots of time has gone by since Ahlanna was born. She is now 8 years old, and has 2 more brothers and 2 more sisters. With her Daddy, Rory and her Mommy, Heather, she has her 2 ½ year old brother Cameron O’Neil Olds, and her baby sister Maren Elizabeth, who is now almost 6 months old. With her Mommy, Melissa, and her Daddy, Jason, she has her 3 year old sister, Amber, and her baby brother Jason, Jr. who is nearly 1 ½ years old. She loves all of them so very much and is a mother to all of them. She and Madison both teach them all so many things. I have kept the playrooms set up for them, and every time she comes here, she pretends she has a café and she takes our orders and brings us our food. She is still so adorable and precious to me and I can only imagine how she will be when she is grown. One of the proudest moments so far for me was the day her Daddy called and told me that she cut her hair to donate it to Locks of Love, so the children with cancer could have hair. How unselfish of her to give up her beautiful long curly hair for children she didn’t even know! She has truly made it a blessing to be her grandmother.
I love you, Ahlanna!!
With all my love, always, Grammy