Butterfly face paint and impermanence

Recently my almost three-year old went to a carnival and a volunteer painted a butterfly on his face. Later that evening, as we were getting ready for bed, I mentioned to my child that I would need to wash the butterfly off his face. He became quite upset. I was able to momentarily stem the tide of tears by giving him a butterfly sticker. But 30 minutes later, my child was crying tears of grief again because he wanted his face-paint butterfly back.

This made me wonder how to teach a toddler that impermanence is the law of the universe. Frankly most adults, including me, don't fully grasp it. It's hard for us to be role models for children. I can remember many times in which I thought I had set things up perfectly and thought they would last a long time, but then some thing just changed. For example, we were so pleased that our child's daycare was within walking distance of our house; then the center up and moved. Whenever I feel like I get in a groove at work, somebody new comes along and I have to figure out a new way of doing everything. I constantly forget that things, especially good things, don't and can't stay the way they are.

I didn't have a choice, but to adjust to these changes. Yet they were accompanied by feeling of anger, frustration and irritation, or adult versions of grief. It makes me wonder how I and my child will react to the ultimate in impermanence, facing up to our own mortality and the mortality of those we love
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