I feel like most people I meet who grew up being an only child wished they had a sibling. I, of course, was one of them.

One of the channels I would always watch as a kid was PBS. One of my favorite shows was "Dragon Tales." In the show, Emmy and Max, a brother and sister, journey to a magical land with friendly dragons, using a magical dragon scale to transport them. In each episode Max and Emmy go to Dragon Land and with their four dragon friends, Ord, Cassie, Zak and Wheezie they solve problems and learn life lessons (an episode about Dragon land losing all of its color and the kids literally having to paint all the trees and stuff particularly stands out in my mind for some reason).

Part of the reason I was drawn to the show was that the main two kids were siblings. I loved seeing siblings go on adventures and still care about each other. Also, one of my favorite book series growing up was the Magic Tree House books. Again, the series starred a brother and sister who go on adventures together (even went to Camelot a few times).

It wasn't until the third grade when I found out my six-year-old dream of becoming a big sister would finally come to pass. My parents told me that they were expecting a baby. My dad placed bets on whether or not it would be a boy or a girl. I, unfortunately, lost that bet and did not get the baby sister I'd always dreamed of. But now I cannot imagine life without my little brother. I probably fell in love the first time I got to hold him and he didn't cry.

Someone might think that after ten years of having my parents' full attention to suddenly having to share it with another being that would scream and cry in the middle of the night would be difficult for me. Honestly, it wasn't really that hard for me. As a kid, and even now, I never liked being the complete center of attention.

When I got home from school, the first thing I did (if I didn't have any homework) was go into my room and play with my barbies and superhero action figures alone. I didn't do that because I was a sad or lonely child, I was just happy to have the time alone (also it was nice not to have to argue with anyone that Wonder Woman should be with Batman and not Superman).

Having a brother didn't feel like this huge life-altering thing, it felt pretty natural. Plus, I'm a pretty heavy sleeper so I slept through most of the crying despite the fact that his room was right across the hall from me.

Also, because of the 10-year age gap, there wasn't time for the typical sibling rivalry. I was a big sister and a built-in babysitter. The rivalry stuff would come later around the time when I was a senior in high school, which mostly just consist of tackling each other (he's looking forward to the day he can beat me, which may be sooner than I'd like because he's pretty strong for a 10-year-old).

My brother and I aren't close in age at all. I had friends with siblings I could pass in the halls of my high school. My brother was learning to walk and talk when I was in middle school. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have a sibling closer to my age, but I wouldn't trade what I got with my brother for anything.