"You've seen mermaids before, right?" I asked.
"Yeah, I did!!!" she exclaimed.
"Well, there ya go."
She's 4 years old and was having a little bit of an existential crisis. She doesn't need to be as jaded as I am about so many things in the world. That will come in due time.
The conversation we had was about the "mermaids" that we saw at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival last year - an exhibit that had Devin in complete awe. The mermaids were sitting on some rocks, partially out of the water, splashing, cooing, trilling, waving. Devin even got some pictures with some of them, and got a special little toy at the end. She loved it.
Evidently yesterday at daycare some of the other kids were talking and saying that mermaids weren't real, and Devin was asking about it.
To a 4-year-old, a world with mermaids - especially ones that she met - is a happier place than a world without. I'm sure that fantasy world will be destroyed soon enough, so why expedite it?