How many blood vessels are in your body?

We were travelling to the swimming baths in the school holidays, all 5 of us. This was somewhat of a miracle. Lately a day out with all of us had seemed out of reach and what usually happened was I stayed with my son and my husband went out with the girls. This was disappointing for us but we did it because at that point in time it was the best thing for us.

On this particular day it had been carnage getting out the house and throughout it all I was waiting for my son to declare he actually didn’t want to go but he never did. I never quite fully believed we would get out the house until we were in the car and on our way, in fact as the outing got closer and closer my blood pressure got higher and higher. It was like getting closer and closer to the outside world and it could be whisked away from me at any point. I mean I didn’t particularly want to go swimming but I did want to be out the house. But by some miracle we all made it out and we were on our way.

As we drove, I felt my blood pressure start to lower. The chaos of the house was behind us. We were moving forward. We were out. I was driving, my husband was working in the passenger seat, the girls were chatting, and my son was talking away in the backseat, which often means he’s feeling okay.

Then out of nowhere, he asked:

“How many blood vessels are in the body?”

I didn’t even blink. At this point, I’m never really surprised by what comes out of his mouth. But it still made me smile because my blood pressure had been all over this morning. I told him it was a great question, and before I could even attempt an answer, he said:

“If you take all the blood vessels out of a child, they will fill half the earth. But if you take them out of an adult, they’ll fill the whole earth.”

Of course. Casual blood vessel trivia. I had absolutely no idea if that was true, but I didn’t doubt him for a second. He’d obviously read or heard it somewhere. Probably once. Possibly months ago. And it had just stuck.

That’s what his brain is like. He can’t always find his socks, but he can recall a random science fact with perfect wording from a single moment. It’s incredible, honestly. And a little mysterious. Because it’s not like the books he reads—like Gecko Gets Frustrated—say things like that. So where did he learn it? When did it sink in? What else is hidden in there, waiting to come out? We found out later on that day actually when my husband’s daughter was telling us how she hated maths and in year 5 she has to learn about vertices. Now I had no idea about vertices but my son pipes up…

“Oh I know about vertices.”

Now sometimes when a conversation is happening my son will join in and make it sound like he knows what he is talking about so he isn’t left out. And he is highly skilled at this. It’s a strength of his for sure. So I asked him…

“Do you? Crikey I don’t even know what a vertice is. What is it?”

And I felt sure he wouldn’t know the answer. But lo and behold he said its about corners of shapes. And my husband’s daughter confirmed he was correct.  It’s amazing how much stuff he actually knows……especially considering he has only attended school for around 50% of the time this year!!!! Who needs school eh?!?

And as I drove I thought about the blood vessels. I had never ever thought about it but it was obviously preying on his mind because as we drove along he was looking at the veins in his arm and saying his arm vein was really long. When we finally stopped I googled how many blood vessels are in your body and there are actually billions. Billions. And although my son wasn’t exactly right he was close, if you took all the blood vessels out of your body and laid them out they would stretch 60000 miles, that is actually twice round the earth. I mean that is a lot of blood vessels!!

And maybe that’s what it’s like inside his head. Billions of thoughts, all criss-crossing and branching out in every direction. Just like blood vessels—unseen, but always there, carrying all sorts of important stuff, keeping everything going.