material blood

This morning at breakfast Ben said, "Mom, let's talk about blue blood." (He does this thing where he starts little topics of discussion throughout the day.) "Blue blood? You mean arterial blood?" "Yup, material blood." So, I proceeded to give my son a lecture on something I apparently knew nothing about. Yeahhhh... turns out arterial blood is bright red because it's very oxygenated. And venous blood is a dark red. There is no blue blood running through our veins (or arteries for that matter)...it just looks blue because we're looking at it through our skin. I vividly remember being told that our blood is blue (or at least bluish) until it hits the air (like when we're cut), and then the oxygen in the air turns it red. So. Which parent wants to step up to admit it was them that led me astray? Hmmm? I'll admit, I'm the one who made the blue blood = arterial blood connection. It made me sound smart. (Yes, if I'd really stopped to think about things it wouldn't make sense...like, I know the little tiny veins in my wrist are not arteries, yet they still look blue...so calling it arterial blood....yeesh. But when you're trying to show off to your 5 year old that you know lots of cool stuff, you don't have a lot of time to research.)

Ben made up his first (and second) knock knock joke(s) today:

Knock-knock
Who's there?
Banana peel
Banana peel who?
Banana peel YUCKY!

Knock-knock
Who's there?
Magnet.
Magnet who?
MAGNET WINDOW HOUSE!

Apparently it's not how funny or ironic the punchline is. It's all about how loud you say it.