Yotsubato! What does いてー mean?

Question

I'm currently reading yotsubato and I am a bit confused on what いてー means in this sentence.

あ　いや　ちいさいむすめがいてー。

Answer 1

This いてー is just the te-form of いる. It's elongated for some reason; maybe the speaker is thinking of what to say next, like a filler ("soooo", "ummmm...").

Without more context, it's difficult to determine the role of this te-form. In general, it should be either a reason marker or a simple continuation marker. (See: て form at end of phrase but not being used for requests) The nuance is either "Because I have a little daughter" or "I have a little daughter (, and...)".