Growing up with siblings five, seven and nine years younger than me has been the greatest blessing of my life. I always get this weird look when I tell people how many siblings I have and then an even weirder look when I tell them how old they are.

“Oh, wow. Quite the age gap.”

Yes, there is an age gap, but I couldn’t be more thankful for it.

Claire, Ava and Isaac, thank you for keeping me young forever.

Because of my siblings, Santa came to my house for 18 years. And when my brother stopped believing in Santa, yes, I cried. I cried because an innocent part of my childhood was taken away. But, if it wasn’t for my siblings this would have been taken away a whole lot sooner.

People always say, “I wish I was young again,” but I get to stay young forever (at least until they grow up.)

I still get to experience innocent minds, who think nothing but good of the world. And I get to hear my sister cry because she got one math problem wrong; little does she know, there are bigger problems than that in life.

Every time I come home, I get attacked by my brother with NERF guns. I’m sorry, but if that doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what would.

And when all three of them drag me outside to play a game of ‘500,’ I pout like I’m five years old again and say how much I don’t want to play. But, this is the best stress reliever of all. It’s a good reminder that there’s more to life than tests, grades and papers.

I pick my sisters up from school and they rant to me about middle school drama. Let me tell you, I wish I had that drama again. I really do.

Whenever we’re in public, my brother is always afraid people will think I’m his mom (sometimes I feel like I am,) but he has no need to worry. Because 10 minutes later the four of us are on the floor in the middle of target laughing hysterically at I don’t even know what — moms don’t do that. Kids do.

No matter how old I get, my siblings remind me of the craziness of life. They remind me to laugh a little, and they remind me that there’s nothing wrong with staying young forever.