Heather, I have boy/girl twins who will be 11 next month. I knew from a very early age (hell, I knew during my pregnancy!) that my daughter was going to be a handful, but I always assumed the difficult years were somewhere down the road. Say, the teen years perhaps? Wishful thinking! There is something about the mother-daughter relationship that just makes it hard sometimes. I think daughters are harder on their moms, and moms are harder on their daughters. It's just a tricky relationship at times. I love my daughter to the ends of the earth, but sometimes being her mom is just plain difficult. She's headstrong and so am I, and that makes for a sometimes tumultuous relationship (you used the word complicated and it describes my relationship with my daughter perfectly). And it started much earlier than I ever imagined. Thankfully the trying times are far outweighed by the amazing, beautiful and touching moments in which I feel so incredibly blessed to be a mother.

Hang in there. You and Leta are going to be just fine.

(For what it's worth, I applaud your decision to allow Leta her privacy. It's the right thing to do.)

@The Prima Momma and @TigerLily:

YES. AND YES. AND YES YES YES.

I suspected this time would come where you would write less about Leta. I think it's wise of you to let Leta decide if she wants to be as public as her mama and respect her privacy if that's what she wants.

I do hope she gives you permission some day because I sure miss her! Good luck with things. I have no doubt you'll get through it with wisdom gained.

I'm loving these stories about Daisy-Bobo!

Reading recommendation: Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, if you haven't read it yet. Not entirely related to this post, but it's about mother-daughter relationships.

My mom used to say I was the sweetest child ever. Then I turned six. We somewhat were able to communicate with proper full sentences again when I turned 20. So there is still some hope for you too ;)

I have two daughters...8 and 5. My oldest has always reminded me of Leta in her personality, so much. By the time my daughter was three I knew I was in for it. By the time she started preschool, so did her teachers...she could argue with a man six foot five and not bat an eye. By the time she was four, I was wondering if she might be autistic (not kidding there). By five, I was worried...but she was still so amazingly smart and charming that I tried not to. By the time she was in first grade...well, it was not a good year. My HIGH IQ child, the one going to the magnet school that people talked about everywhere she went because she sounded like an adult, was put in in-school suspension and was getting into trouble for not listening daily. We were in screaming matches daily it seemed and I was beyond stressed with worry over what was going on. I began to dread being around her. Honest to God...sorry if that sounds harsh.

And then...

It all went away. ALL OF IT (well mostly...we still have issues, BELIEVE ME!!). Her second grade year of elementary school she just blossomed...I didn't hear ONE word from her teacher about misbehavior or hyperactivity or being difficult or too strong willed. NOT ONCE. Her moods stabilized...her confidence soared. She stunned her father and I...and we were so beyond glad that it was OVER!!

Then guess what?

Her five year old sister became a little shithead!! Seriously...the kid who'd been our version of Marlo...smiling and beaming light literally everywhere she went began acting like such a brat,a COMPLETE change in personality, so much so that I began to wonder...is she autistic (sorry...it has to do with her not being able to sit still or look at us when we address her etc...not meant to be negative or anything)...or if she was possibly developing diabetes, like her sister has...

We are still in the midst of daughter number two running us through the grist mill daily. Oh dear Lord how the child can annoy you and make you want to pull your hair out (though she is SO sweet and still precious...yet loud, hyper and so VERY messy! And hard headed...there are no words for how hard headed either of them are! I have NO idea where they get it from...she says sheepishly)

Would it be different with sons? I doubt it Heather. I really do. I think it's just this age. FIVE is really bad. Two was nothing with both my girls...but five nearly killed me...going into six. It was a shitstorm.

So, I feel ya girl. I really, REALLY do. Oh, the stories my husband could tell you. And while I don't want to scare you and make you dread the future, but the next fun phase you will experience is sibling rivalary and sisters. OMG, mine have been competing since the smallest one could move!! They fought just tonight over who got what to eat for dinner!! It's DAILY. It's like living with a married couple who can't stand each other, but can't stand to be apart! The playing...the fighting...the bickering and competing. I never knew how much it would encompass their daily lives as sisters, especially since I'm 15 younger than my own.

Ok, that's my brutal honesty about my lovely girls...who I adore and would kill for...but sometimes really would like to take a vacation from in a QUIET location without any female DRAMA!! ; )

I am the mom of a 7 yr old boy, and I have friends who have daughters the same age...oh, boy, oh boy--I think I have a clue of what you are alluding to! And I think you are making the absolute right choices in filtering your inclusion of her. The day will come, if it hasn't already, where her knowing that you have chosen to do this will be of huge importance to her and her relationship with you...and nothing is more important to a mom than that!

Ditto what TropicalPopsicle and jacqueline said. Also, I would recommend adding Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to the list. SUCH a good mother-daughter story.

Everytime you mention Bobo I look at the url to be sure I'm not reading me. My blog is about me and my dogs surviving life after my husband died. And yes Bobo is one of the dogs!

I went through the teenage thing when I was seven.
My mom remembers sitting on top of me while I was on my bed with her hands around my neck screaming "I'm going to kill you!".
(I have no memory of this so either it wasn't as bad as she describes it or she was having a night terror and never realized it.)
I'd like to think I made up for it during the teen years when I never drank, smoked pot, or tried to sneak out of the house. And I attended all my church meetings with vigor.
But then I made up for that about 10 years later by apostatizing.

All in all, if you add everything up and divide by 33, I think she got a good deal.
I think you probably will too.

(So far no anti-vaccination comments which is a good sign.)

I know!! We survived the "Terrible Twos" and the "Fucking Threes"...and then (in my experience) she was a DREAM for, oh, a few months when she was 4. And then the REAL drama starts. My daughter is 9 and I literally break out in a cold sweat almost daily when I think about her teenage years.

Raising girls is fucking HARD. You are SO not alone.

Will you please write a book about this some day, so that others know they aren't alone? WITH Leta's permission, of course.

Thank you for sharing Heather. My heart goes out to you. I found that the first child takes it pretty hard when the second child comes, no matter how well you think you have prepared them. When my second child was born 6 years after my first, it was heart wrenching to see how his reaction was to his little sister. It's like postpartum depression, not something that people want to share. I thought there were times my kids were going to kill each other, but now they are older, 16 and 22, they adore each other. It will all be okay because you are aware that something is going on.

P.S. My brother is 57 and still thinks my parents liked me best and wants little to do with me. It hurts, but I can't do anything about it.

You'll work it out... you'll figure out how to share the bits that are OK to share and still give your relationship with Leta some dimension in your writing. By plucking out and sharing the positive, it will help you to SEE the positive during a period of time where it may not always be so easy to do that.

Props to you for thinking about her privacy and not writing publicly the stories you think might not be entirely yours to tell.

JustLinda.net

I just wanted you to know that I used to hear about this in clinic ALL THE TIME when I worked as a general pediatrician (I'm ICU only now, but this was only about 4 years ago). It was that age range from 4-9 or so that seemed to be an even bigger issue than the early teens in girls. I agree completely that you should be respecting Leta's wishes and posting less about her. In the big picture your family is much more important than readers on-line.

Also, the pregnant woman in me is now secretly hoping this little baby is a boy.

Honestly? Thank god for this blog.

My husband and I don't have kids yet, but I love that I can come here and get real-life anecdotes, advice, and affirmations about raising kids from all y'all. Every day we vacillate on whether we think it'll be harder to raise a boy or a girl, and we both agree that the girl will probably kill us...but we want a little girl so much. And I feel like if we go into it at least knowing there's a pretty good chance that a few years in she'll turn into Satan in pigtails, we'll be able to get through it a little saner, if not easier.

So, you know, THANKS, y'all.