With Justin gone for work again, Robbie has really started to take the role of man of the house seriously.  I came home and let Barkley out and took out the trash.  I left Robbie in the kitchen with the instructions to please feed the dog (I haven’t fed Barkley dinner since Robbie took over the task a week ago!).  I figured this would probably be done when I came back up.  Boy, was I in for a surprise…

I walked back in the kitchen to find the dishwasher open and the bottom rack pulled out and off it’s tracks.  Robbie was standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding the package of dishwashing detergent packets.  He looked up, surprised to see me back so soon, and said, “Dishes, dirty.”  Of course!  And how in the world could I find anything to be frustrated with when all he wanted to do was wash my dishes?  He had even pulled some of his (clean) dishes out from the cabinet to put in the dishwasher.

The cleaning help continued when we found a mess Barkley made in the hall (picture a dog afraid of an iron left in the middle of the hallway who feels a need to mark it).  He came running in with extra paper towels and declared Barkley a “bad dog, messy.”  It was all I could do to not scoop him up.

Robbie’s also turning into quite the workout buddy, too.  This afternoon, he laid down next to me to do sit ups, giggling as he tried to keep up with my counting.  When he saw that I was using an exercise  ball (you know, the exercise where you move the ball from between your legs to your arms while doing sit-ups — terrible description, but you get the picture), he got up, ran to the play area, got a softball, and tried to imitate me.

As I finished ab work (I know they’re in there somewhere!), he pounced on me (resulting in a massive tickle fight where he repeated “I will not jump on my beautiful mother” while trying to catch his breath) and later brought me hand weights (8 pounds, nonetheless).  As I moved toward a little arm work, he grabbed one pound weights and followed along.  Maybe he’s gotten so into fitness since we started doing our stroller runs together.  Whatever the reason, I like having someone remind me that we need to go to the gym (he starts telling me “QiQi, gym.  Fun” as soon as he gets in the car) and doing exercises with me.  It’s nice to have the support in person.