Delicate Freedom * November 20, 2008     That’s the word from Iraq. Aric wants me to tell everyone that freedom is a delicate thing.     I believe him. I don’t know if the freedom in America is as delicate as the freedom in Iraq, but I can tell you that the freedom in Saint Cloud, Florida borders next to lace for delicate.     Especially when “the mommy” has to go to the hospital to “go and get the new baby ‘Dip’” and the YaYa has to baby sit the Conner-boy (2) and the Zoe-girl (4).      If there is one thing I have learned in my fifty years on this earth, it is that raising small children is a young women’s game. My grandchildren are a joy. They are fun. They are precocious. They are exhausting.     And they are intrusive in the extreme.     Upon hearing of the triumphant birth of Kipling Sherwood Stahle, the newest grandchild and thrill seeker of our family, I decided that I would leave Kip’s older siblings in the care and feeding of their grandfather (aka the Poppie) and celebrate by taking a long, hot bath by myself.  Taking a bath—for me—is close to a religious experience—okay, maybe not close, but I enjoy a good bath—a lot, and if it had not been for a well-designed garden tub during the bitter North Carolina years I would have frozen to death and would not be typing this.     Imagine my shock when, up to my neck in tub bubbles, I opened my eyes to see my four-year old granddaughter, buck naked with her hands akimbo on her hips, starring at me.     “You are not getting in this tub,” I said.     Frowning and sassy, Zoe quipped, “But you have to share.”     Conner then appeared next to the tub (without pants) trying to pull his shirt over his head chanting, “Hep, hep, hep, hep. This is Conner-talk for, “Help me get my shirt over my head, so I can ruin your alone time in your beloved tub of happiness.”        Sarah, my daughter-in-law, hearing the general toddler mayhem then came into the bathroom to see “What’s going on?”     I yelled at her. “You are not getting in this tub with me.”     At this point, I started to scream . . .     . . . for personal privacy, for the quick recovery of the “mommy,” and for delicate freedom—real or imagined.     My youngest daughter once walked in on me while I was in the bathtub and later commented, “Mom, the only word I could think of was stringy.” Sigh.     Enjoy your moments of sweet freedom this week and remember stringy is as stringy does. Linda (Soak-N-Prune) Zern