Job Security

Dear Farmer has it.  Fact of the matter is: around here no one can do "everything", but him.

The Wife has it.  Fact of the matter is: no one else wants it....here's the story...
In the past the Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter has fancied herself "practically perfect in every-way".  She's not actually too far off the mark, her faults are few.  Then again, she hasn't lived very long, or very much, so it's easy to be measured within a very small pond as a very big fish.  One of her admirable qualities is that she enjoys a mother's job.  All she wants to be, she says, is a mother.  {sigh} How sweet!  Her opportunity came this week as the Wife came down with a raging fever and was useless for five days.  The Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter was delighted to be told by Dear Farmer "You're in charge of the meals and the kitchen, keep it together."  Like the angels in heaven began to sing and the doors of glory opened whilst the light of divinity shone on her face, she felt something like that.  What started off as an angelic ideal began to turn into cruel reality.  By the end of the third day the Wife had a haggard and whining Hausfrau moaning "I'm not supposed to be a mom for twenty more years!"  The reality of the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer is that no one is ever perfectly satisfied, but it doesn't change the job.  You can't please everyone all the time.  And no matter how much you clean it-it's never going to stay that way permanently.  And I'm just talking about the kitchen and meals...
The Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter did an amazing job!  She made her own menu using everything we had in the kitchen, no shopping was needed.  She cleaned it, cooked it, and managed it.  She really did well. The other children really didn't need to stop and appreciate her job, because she did it so well, it varied little from the Wife being there.  But all these positives, when over-worked and tired, become negatives.  The sign of maturity is when we look at the glass "half-empty" and see it as beautiful and we choose to proclaim to the world it is "half-full".  The Hausfrau Farmer's Daughter isn't quite there yet.  She's asleep in bed...enjoying the fact that the Wife is better and awake.
The Wife is grateful that the Hausfrau had this opportunity.  Lessons lived are often better learned.  And it's nice to know that I have job security for another "twenty years"!