Younger brothers: where would we be without them? Being the eldest sister to two brothers made is nearly impossible for me not to grow up and be independent. It was my birth right to be the leader and take charge in the family.

Now as for my brothers, it wouldn't seem to be that way. They, on the other hand, need someone to help them through life just a little bit. The other day, we were in the store shopping for food. My brother, Cody, complained that there was no food in the house for him to eat while he was home for break. I had given him the idea of getting Tyson chicken strips because cooking is not his strong suit and they are easy to make. He opens the freezer door and picks up one of the bags. He reads the fully cooked note on the bag and his face lit up. "These are fully cooked, so I can just eat them right away." I try to hold back my laugh, but it was just too difficult my 19-year-old brother just had the idea that he could eat the chicken frozen. Granted, it does say fully cooked so he probably wouldn't get sick, but now he knows that even if it is fully cooked it was in the freezer. Going to have to heat it up somehow, no one likes frozen food unless it is ice cream.

The interesting thing is that over the years I have collected hundreds of memories that I could share, but this isn't a novel after all; I don't have a lot of time. Most, if not all, of my stories are just simple moments in which my brothers fail to think before they speak. The hamburger in the downstairs freezer has been in the exact same spot for 11 years and for some reason Cody can never find it. If you want rice too, you probably shouldn't ask him to get it. He doesn't know what rice looks like apparently. Laundry was a new adventure for him when he had to go away to school. He's a momma's boy and always had it done for him. We might go to the same school, but I sure as heck wasn't walking across campus to do his laundry for him. So it was a process of teaching him what to do and how to do it. I think he has the hang of it now.

Remembering names of things is sometimes difficult and reaching the age where you have to call different doctors is very interesting if you have lived a dependent lifestyle. One day we were discussing the dentist and orthodontist. Two people my family knows very well. Cole, age 16, was struggling to remember the name of the orthodontist. Going through names of the doctors he finally reaches it and says, "And then there's the evil dentist that puts metal on your teeth." I think I laughed for a good five minutes at this moment. I remember the days with braces and all the horrible appointments where they got tightened. Thankfully none of us have to experience that any longer.

Everyday life is simply interesting because my brothers are hilarious and Cole randomly says jokes to me like, "Kelsey your momma is so fat that when she was at the beach the whales came to shore and started singing 'We are Family' even though you're fatter than me." We were sitting at the dinner table discussing something else and out blurted that statement. It honestly keeps me on my toes and always ready for anything because you never know what will happen. Cody was about 10 at the time and he put a metal container in the microwave to heat something up. Little did he realize that metal and microwaves don't mix. Fortunately, we noticed before he burnt the house down. All a part of teaching them to become independent and to live out on their own, and maybe adding just a sprinkle of common sense wouldn't be too bad either.

Even through all these experiences, I am happy to be the older sister to two amazing brothers. I was always there to protect them when they were little but now it has become their turn to protect me. I was never bored as a child with them and even as I grow up, and still do, we still go on adventures and add to all the memories that we have. Cole will continue to say jokes at random along with sayings that never make sense to me. Cody will still be missing a lot of common sense, but he is slowly learning to be independent away at school. I get to help him out here and there, but he is learning to leave the dependent life style and be out on his own. We just have to make sure he doesn't eat anything that says "fully cooked" on the bag.