I grew up as an only child, but my four younger cousins and I were raised so closely that I consider them my siblings. For the first ten years of my life, I was the only girl in my family surrounded by three little boys. With the four of us being only 3-5 years apart, we are extremely close to one another. We’ve been together through the ups and downs, but growing up with them has been nothing close to boring. These 18 things sum up my life with them in a nutshell.

1. Constantly being covered in bruises and scrapes from either trying to play with the boys or from fighting with the boys

2. Their exact reaction when you drag them to go shopping with you

3. This is you when your parents force each other to “hug it out” after an argument

4. When they say you have bad taste in music, but later you catch them singing a song you showed them

5. When you go to one of their sporting events and realize you’re their biggest cheerleader

6. Your response when you constantly having to compromise over the littlest things

7. How you feel when they ask you to be the judge of their burping competition

8. Your reaction when you find out that they did something mean to a girl

9. Your reaction when you find out that they did something nice for a girl

10. The joy you feel when you have some blackmail over them

11. When they tell you they broke something of yours but you’re used to having your things broken by them (For me, it was always my glasses)

12. Your comeback when they say you’re taking too long to get ready (when you’re definitely not taking that long)

13. Bonding over how crazy your family is

14. Your face when you think of the perfect place to hide all of your favorite snacks

15. Watching them do something disgusting and wondering how you’re even related

16. When you hear them try to flirt with your friends

17. Your face when they’re always there to kill a spider for you

18. Knowing that at the end of the day, you’ll always have each others back