"What's That Smell?"

Could it be???

As many of you might know/remember...we think Easton might not have a sense of smell. Anosmia is the official term for the inability to smell. Various things can cause it...you could be born with it or develop it due to a head injury or a really bad sinus infection or something or perhaps something in the way...a nasal obstruction or polyp. But it's strange, Easton has never reacted to smells or otherwise convinced us his nose works in that way.

Being the obsessive worrier that I am, I sometimes wonder if his excessive snoring and his (possible) anosmia might be related. I also tend to think that his lack of oxygen as a baby (when he had to be resuscitated and was gray for a significant period of time) might have damaged his olfactory bulb?

Now many of you have said, "Oh Kristin, that's why he doesn't like to eat anything..." as smell is such a huge part of taste for most of us. However, I kinda see it like he perhaps has an even better ability to taste. You know, like a blind person has a heightened sense of hearing? Because he's potentially had this since birth(ish) maybe his other senses--like taste--have had to pick up that slack and perhaps that's why he's so picky? I don't really know of course, heck, I don't even know for sure if he's anosmic. But I have poked around on an anosmia message board or two and many of the congenital anosmics seem to have this in common with Easton: they're extremely picky. Although I'm not sure if he's pickier than your average preschooler, but Easton has a big issue with textures so that might be it.

Some of the official stuff I've read on anosmia will tell you that yes, anosmics can indeed taste just fine. But that they can't differentiate flavor. So, you might recall when you learned about the five senses and taste buds and such that there are 5 different taste receptors in your mouth for sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and then umami (which is kind of a savory thing). Now, these people would then say that Easton wouldn't necessarily be able to differentiate between chocolate and vanilla so much...just that it would taste "sweet". I've never tested him on that and think it might be our next step in our at-home experimenting. I do know, however, that he did not like coffee ice cream when he's had that before...but that's gotta have some bitterness to it, wouldn't you think?

Anyway, this is a really tricky thing. We've done various blindfolded sniff tests with him and he's never passed. It's difficult because you can't hold something up to him and say, "What does that smell like?" because he doesn't know any smells. So we've done things like vinegar (he doesn't react) or orange juice (which he drinks all the time). If you say, "Does that smell good or bad?" he always answers "Good" because it's like he thinks if you take the time to smell something like he's seen us do with candles or flowers or something then it must smell good.

In his life he's never sniffed the air when something's burning (like on the stove) and reacted. He's never seemed to notice his brother's dirty diapers when the rest of us can hardly stand to be in the same room. He's never come down to something baking in the oven and said, "Mmmmmm, what are you making?" I melt tarts in my warmer frequently and he's never taken notice of the aromas, even when my Frosted Pumpkin scent made Jason think I'd eaten teriyaki something or other for lunch. :)

If someone has let loose a little "natural gas", if you will...he might say, "Pee yew!" but it's more of a conditioned response to the sound. He has never seemingly caught a whiff of an S.B.D. and said anything. (You like my helpful link for those not as up to date on the acronym?) He might play "stinky toes" with Dalton but it's not that he's really smelling the foot. It's just what people say about feet, right?

This has been going on forever and I meant to mention it at his 3 year well-child last January but forgot. It--and his snoring--are now on my very short list for his 4 year check up in a couple months.

So, anyway, today Easton shocked me by saying, "What's that smell?" I immediately thought it was something he'd heard on a TV show or heard in a story at school or something. But I said, "What do you smell?" and he said, "You...you smell like cats" which made me laugh...especially since I was freshly showered and in clean clothes and was pretty sure I didn't smell like cats even if he knew that odor. But when I started cracking up he decided to add "...and poop!" So, I was convinced he hadn't really smelled anything, it was just something to say. There was no way I smelled like cats and poop.

But then we went to gymnastics...and we stopped in the locker room to go potty. It's right near the pool and smelled heavily of chlorine and Easton said again, "What's that smell?" Suddenly, I wasn't so sure anymore that his nose doesn't work. Yet I was also more suspicious that he must've heard that on a show...and when I asked he confirmed that Ruby said it on Max & Ruby: she smells an egg.

We talk about it and other things here:

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

So, watching that last one especially, you can see that he almost doesn't get the concept of an odor...he has a tendency to try to rely on other senses to identify an "aroma" by either touching the odor-producer or looking at indications of what it should smell like on the object itself (like lemons on a bottle of dish soap). He states that he smells the book or my hand...obviously he feels those.

However, as you might notice from my voice, he got me kind of excited the second time I had him sniff the dirty diaper (I know, I'm awful, but it's the one thing I would think he would know how it smells). The thing I notice with that is that both times he touches it...the first time with his hands and the second time with his nose...I think he also relies on the sound that it makes to tell him what it might be. But still, I wasn't convinced that second time except that he doesn't say it smells like poop (which it was), he says it smells like a diaper. That's different to me. So, while he didn't necessarily fail those tests, he certainly didn't pass either.

Anyway, I'm trying not to let myself Google it a ton, because Google is not always your friend with these types of things. Stay away! :) Mostly I've just been thinking about posting something like this forever and with our most recent round of videotaped tests it seemed like as good a time as any.

There ya go.