That's What He Thought?

Last night, there was a mosquito in Max's room (the first of many, I am afraid). Max was pretty concerned about it, because he didn't want it "eating my blood" so I killed it before tucking him in. This led to him asking why mosquitoes and ticks "eat people's blood" (I really didn't have a good answer for this), what they drank, why they had the same thing for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and dessert, and other lovely nighttime conversations. Then, he asked me why sometimes he gave his blood to other kids and why sometimes other kids gave their blood to him. It took me a minute for this to sink in. All this time, he has thought that when they did blood draws, we were taking his blood away to give it to other kids. I explained to him that the blood was put under a microscope and looked at to make sure it was healthy, and so that the doctors could count to make sure he had enough of the different kind of blood for him to be safe and healthy. I told him that daddy and I did sometimes go and donate our blood, but that we are bigger and have more blood and we do it by our own choice. That people can decide to donate their blood to help people who need blood because their body isn't working right or because they were in an accident or something happened where they needed extra blood. I told him that if he ever wanted to give his blood for other people to use, that he would need to be bigger to do that, and that we would never, ever do it without his permission. He seemed happy with this answer.

I never had a clue that he felt this way. I wonder what else he thinks that I haven't discovered yet.