Once upon a time on the night of a hot summer, a baby was given birth to on the way to the hospital room.

GET OUT OF THE WAY I'M GIVING BIRTH!

That baby was not the first. There was competition.

It didn't help that there was another one born

New competition

Who are you?

And another one, and another one...

And another, another, another, another, you get the idea, it was chaotic.

I had problems when i was 5 1/2. So when my teacher gave me a present, I was really happy.

I named her Elizabeth from my favorite show, Clifford the big red dog. But it was dolly for short.

My sisters didn't like her. They marked her, scratched her, ripped her leg, hid her from me.

I couldn't trust them.

When I was 5 we moved away from our small 3 bedroom house to a town house because there were too many of us in the house.

I remember there was a fire in the wooded area next to one on the houses.

I remember my friend, who was around 7, ran into the fire barefooted to save her little brother and his friend.

I remember how she smiled even though her feet burned.

We used to join the Easter egg hunts the neighborhood had.

We used to take out the candy and put the eggs where we found them.

We moved again when I hit 4th grade.

We lived in an apartment surrounded by trees and stray cats.

When I was 7, and 11, I was flower girl for both my aunts wedding.

My sisters were jealous. And i loved every moment of it.

When i was 12, my family and I went to Africa for a few months over the summer.

There were spiders the size of my head, cockroaches the size of my hand, flies everywhere. It was fun, but scary.

I've never been swimming before. I've never even been to a pool. But the closes experience I've had was when I went to the beach in Africa.

I've never seen anything so....I don't know! Is that weird?

There was a lot of sand, and me and my sisters collected a ton of shells.

We even went for a boat ride. We were all hugging each other, but i was too busy enjoying the wind and water rush around my face, and the view as we got farther and farther away from the shore.

I had a lot of freedom at Africa. We went on a lot of walks, which isn't something my mama allows here in America.

I saw something new every day.