What I really meant....

I offended my daughter-in-law the other day.

She has had bronchitis since Xander was born. And typical of first time Moms, she sleeps with her arm dangling into the bassinet so she can wake up every half hour and check to see if baby is breathing. Hence, she is not getting well and she is just exhausted all day.

Perhaps I came across as a little harsh when I said, "Quit waking up to check on him. If he's dead, he'll still be dead in the morning. You might as well sleep while you can."

Okay, I know it sounds awful for a Granny to say that, and if anyone knows babies can die, it's me. But the fact is, you can be doing everything right and tragedy can still occur. And we all know of cases where the parents have done just about everything wrong, and the baby survives just fine.

Of course I cannot undo my harsh approach but perhaps she'll understand what I really meant was what Jesus said in Matthew 6:27, " Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life."
And science has proved that just the opposite is true - worrying actually takes hours off your life.

And perhaps she'll glean from it that my intentions were that she should just relax and enjoy her time with her newborn and take full advantage of every opportunity to rest. No one has ever looked back on their life and wished they worried more, stressed more, slept less or spent less time enjoying their family.