She had spent the whole afternoon playing outside. "They're presents!" she said.

A few days later it rained unexpectedly. (Here, rain is never expected.) She cried to see her presents erased.

"Honey, chalk is not forever," I said. "You can draw new presents tomorrow. That's what makes chalk fun"

She didn't understand, and just kept crying, broken-hearted that the work of an afternoon was destroyed.

(Because, to a three-year-old, an afternoon is a lifetime.)

But, by the time the pavement had dried, so had her tears. She was on to other things.