All Writer's need an editor

Tonight, after my wife and young daughter returned from seeing a movie, my daughter snuggled in next to me on the couch where I was writing.

"What are you doing Daddy?" she asked.

"Writing in my blog," I said.

"What's a blog?"

"It's like a journal," my wife answered as she entered the living room and sat beside my daughter and me.

"Would you like me to read some of what I've written?" I asked my daughter.

"Sure," my seven year-old replied with uncertainty.

I searched for posts involving my daughter and began to read through several. My little audience seemed to enjoy my stories and I began wondering what my wife thought of my writing and the personal vignettes into my daughter's life.

"Daddy," my daughter said bringing me back to present, "Annabelle – who's Annabelle?"

"What?" I asked.

"There wasn't anyone named Annabelle in my class," my daughter explained.

In the post I was reading, I had recounted something my daughter had said about a previous classmate.

"You told me her name was Annabelle," I countered defensively.

"I don't know anyone named Annabelle," she said. "Do you mean Annalise?"

"Uh..."

"Yea, you must mean Annalise Honey," my wife offered with a smirk.

"Oh. Ok." I said and continued on reading the story.

"You have to change it," my daughter stopped me and pointed to my laptop, "You have to fix it."

"Uh," I began. "OK. Sure."

Dutifully I edited out Annabelle's existence and replaced her with Annalise. Satisfied, my daughter allowed me to continue and I finished reading the story aloud.

Then, my wife asked, "What is 'The Easter Bunny is a Vegetarian' about?" She was reading other stories to herself. I answered by reading aloud a blog post about my wife and daughter planting sun flower seeds for Easter.

"They were carrot seeds, not sun flower seeds," my daughter corrected.

"What?" I stopped again and stared at my daughter.

"Pays to have an editor," my wife laughed.