Uh-oh. Trash fell down. Fountain broke.

Most toddlers would agree that riding in the car is no fun, and Kalina would certainly agree. Fortunately, with the advent of two-way communication that does not necessarily include crying (for either of us), car trips have become more bearable as Kalina gains more experience with the English language.

For one, I can incentivise almost every trip, whether it's a jaunt to the park (easy) an expedition to the grocery store (trickier: "Will you help me find eggs? And bananas? And milk?" Three of her favorite things to find), or a visit to the doctor (nearly impossible if I didn't plan a visit to Aunt Nancy or a park or even the grocery store afterward, if at all possible).

But mostly, it helps that we're able to converse as we go. I find our conversations cute, if redundant, and Kalina finds them vastly useful in conveying to me the vital knowledge that a green bus is in our vicinity, and that she would like to see another green bus as soon as possible.

To which I reply, "We'll look for another green bus, will you help me find one?" and bank on her being content in anticipation until she forgets the search 45 seconds later on her discovery of a dump truck, at which point we'll begin looking for another dump truck. And so on.

It should be noted that Lamby, or Cow, or White Doggie, or Mountain Lion, or White Cat, or whichever companion she's chosen for the trip will generally aid our search by being held up by the neck to be able to see out the front window (and also directly into my rearview mirror) better. Cute, cute, cute.

Over a month ago, while we were driving to the grocery store on trash day, Kalina noticed that one of the blue trash cans along our route had tipped over.

"Uh-oh, trash fell down!" she worriedly informed me.
"You're right, the trash can did fall down!"
"Uh-oh, trash fell down!" she said more emphatically, frowning and tearing up a little.
"That's okay, someone will pick it up again!" I brightly reassured her. The girl was clearly distressed and I was hoping to smooth it over.
"Uh-oh!" She reaffirmed.

And with a combination of sympathy and a positive outlook for the future of the garbage can, we repeated this exchange several times until we got to the store. And on the way back (despite the fact that I clearly noted that someone must have picked it up, because there were no fallen trash cans anywhere). And then every time we took that route. And now about 5 times a day.

Not only that, we've added a broken fountain to the conversation. It used to spew water. Now it doesn't, so it's broken.

Poor Kalina. She does worry about things, and so her sweet little mind needed to figure out a solution. Which she did, without any prompting from me. Now the conversation goes something like this:

"Uh-oh. Trash fell down. Fountain broke."
"Yes, Sweetie, that's right."
"Uh-oh. Trash fell down. Fountain broke."
"Yes, but someone will take care of them!"
"Di-dah" (this means Daddy. She reverses the syllables because it's cuter that way.)
"Sure, Sweetie, Daddy will take care of them!"
Smiles.

And we still have the conversation several times a day. Daddy must be busy!

We told Matt that his official job now is trash-can-picker-upper and fountain-fixer, and so he mounted a re-branding effort to teach Kalina that really, he's a Scientist. Here's how that went:

"Kalina, Daddy's job is a Scientist!"
"Scientist."
"That's right! What does Daddy do?"
"Trash fell down! Fountain broke!" Triumphantly.

Photo: Kalina in her car.