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"I&amp;#039;m in the process of writing a story about a girl who&amp;#039;s very much like my Anna, and I&amp;#039;ve been picking her brain to make sure the character is speaking the proper form of teenage-ese and wearing the right clothes and behaving the way a kid today would behave. So in the process of describing this girl&amp;#039;s world and fleshing out everything in it, Anna said to me: &amp;quot;And make it so her parents aren&amp;#039;t divorced.&amp;quot; Oh, baby girl.  I guess I shouldn&amp;#039;t call her that - she&amp;#039;s practically a teenager, after all. But she&amp;#039;ll always be my baby in some fashion, I suppose. I just wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all perfect for her, but we don&amp;#039;t live in that perfect world. Instead, we write about it. I looked up from my laptop and said &amp;quot;OK. Do you want me to make it so her brother isn&amp;#039;t autistic? &amp;#039;Cause I sort-of had him written that way.&amp;quot; She thought for a minute and said, &amp;quot;No. That&amp;#039;d be weird.&amp;quot; I smiled. &amp;quot;Like when someone asks if we ever think about how David might have been?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Yeah. I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;d like that. He wouldn&amp;#039;t be David.&amp;quot; I agree. David is David, and his autism is an intrinsic part of him. And we&amp;#039;re OK with that, even though it&amp;#039;s not always easy sometimes. So I can&amp;#039;t make everything perfect for her. I accept that. And I&amp;#039;m OK with that because she&amp;#039;s who she is in spite of the damage her father and I might have done. She&amp;#039;s wonderful anyway, even if we have to wade through your typical mother/daughter arguments to find it. Once again, I&amp;#039;m humbled by all they are, no matter what.  Happy Friday, everyone. Hug your kids. [Follow Ellie on Twitter and Facebook] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a48083/just-when-you-think/>