When we brought this baby home, it became instantly clear that the family dynamic would change forever:

When she was just beginning to take her very first wobbly steps, I bought my daughter this walker so she could be more independent:

She was giddy with power. She soon began ordering her older sibling brothers to sit in the cart so that she could push them around…literally and figuratively.

“Sit DOWN,” she’d shout in an imperious manner.

The boys would meekly rush to obey her orders. Sometimes they would misunderstand her directives and the wrong person would sit down.

“NO!” she’d shout and point her finger at the designated boy, who would then scurry to take the place of the other.

Once when she was still a toddler, I was musing with my middle child about what he thought his little sister would be when she grew up.

“Oh, that’s easy! She’ll be a boss,” he said with no hesitation.

“A boss? A boss of what?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter. A boss of anything. She’ll be really good at it.”

I spent the weekend in Richmond with the boss of our family for her team’s first soccer tournament of the year: the Ultimate Cup Girls Weekend. When we got to the hotel she read me the riot act when I tried to send some text messages.

“We have to be up at 5:30! It’s time to go to bed!”

The third game of the final went into an actual penalty shoot-out!

After the opposing team’s first shot, she got to take the first penalty kick for her team.  During the car ride home, she told me: “I had to argue with the ref before she’d let me shoot. She kept yelling at me to get back next to the goal to wait for my turn to defend again. I kept explaining to her I’m taking the shot! I’m taking the shot! but she kept yelling at me to get back.”

She got her shot in and then got back to the business of defending her goal.

They won their game, but I think the stress probably took years off my life. 

The girls lost the championship game, but they went home smiling anyway. 

Our household is a benevolent dictatorship. And we like it that way.