When I was younger my mom and her best friends would hang out a lot and she would bring me when she went over their houses. When two of her friends both had kids of their own I called them my "little brothers", because despite the three of us not being related by blood or marriage we saw each other as family and loved each other as such. My mom and her friends smoked back then, and they would go outside on the porch steps to have a cigarette as they tried to stay away from us as much as possible while they were smoking as to not expose us to it. and when i was about 8 and my little brothers were about 3 they started to let us know they were going to be outside on the steps if there was an emergency and leave me in charge. The biggest problem I had was that my two brothers would sometimes not agree of what to play and would argue about who I would play with but I was able to explain them that if they continued to argue like that I wouldn't play with either of them at all and was able to mediate and compromise about what we could play that would make all three of us happy and I got them to listen to me and to stop arguing and if I couldn't get them to agree on something I would be able to get them to play separately and have them agree that i would go back and forth between playing with the two of them. their never was an emergency that i had to go get our parents from outside.

When i played with them despite being older I loved to be with them i loved to talk to them because i wanted to play with them, they were so much fun to play with. And when they came up with an idea of what they wanted to play I would play it with them. i would also gave my ideas on what we could play as well. I loved what they came up with weather it be playing house or pretending we were nights sent out to sleigh a dragon and rescue the princess or pretending we were pirates or pretending to be teachers or doctors I found myself getting so invested in their games because i loved to play with them and when we would talk i would talk with them not at them or down to them if i used a word they didn't understand i would explain to them what it meant just like how my mom would with me. as we get older we didn't get to see each other to much anymore the once a week play dates had to stop as schedules changed and life got in the way but we still find each other as close as when we were little and having just as much fun together as 16 and 12 as we did at 8 and 3.