The battle of the boogers took a strange turn a few weeks back.

I reading the kids a bedtime story, when I spotted my youngest picking his nose. I tried to ignore it, but when he started to pop the booger in his mouth, I couldn’t help myself. “Stop,” I said.

He froze, finger hovering two inches in front of his lips. “What?”

“You can’t eat your boogers,” I said. “When you breathe, they catch the germs in the air, keep them from getting into your body. If you eat them, you’re just putting all those germs into yourself. You don’t want that.”

“But they taste good,” he said.

I didn’t have an answer for that one, so I fell back on my standby. “Um,” I said. “You still can’t eat them.” I grabbed a tissue and handed it to him.

He looked very disappointed. “Maybe,” he said as he wiped the nastiness off on the tissue, “we can get momma to cook something that tastes like boogers?”

“Maybe,” I said.

So far, though, we haven’t remembered to ask her.