Remembering Continued

As an infant, Daniel had developed a fascination with my nose. I’d sit holding him in my rocking chair, giving him his bottle, and he’d sleepily look up at me while he drank. When he began to be able to control his hand movements, he’d started reaching up to touch my face, then my nose. Soon, every time I picked him up, he’d look at and reach for my nose. If I was holding him, his hand was on my nose. As he grew, he continued to reach out for my nose, but it became a need for him. He couldn’t go to sleep unless he touched my nose first. He’d toddle around playing, but would come over to me every few minutes to touch my nose. It was always the same - four fingers on top of my nose, the thumb at the septum, then his index finger would trace my nostrils and he’d turn his hand over to feel my breath on the back of his hand. The look on his face as he followed this routine was one of intense concentration. Often, he would grit his teeth, jutting his lower jaw forward, and place his forehead against mine while his hand explored my nose. His eyes would roll into the back of their sockets as if receiving great pleasure from the touch. I allowed it because friends told me it was his way of comforting himself. I thought it was sweet, a little odd, but I never saw a red flag in it. Interestingly, one of his first complete sentences was, "Mommy, I meed (he couldn’t say Need) to touch your nose." I’d then bend down to his level so that he could do just that. At almost 6 years old, he outgrew his need for my nose. He replaced it with sniffing my cheeks.

He would sniff my cheeks, he would sniff his new toys, other people, everything. He was constantly sniffing something. We began to have to teach him that it’s not polite to walk up and sniff other people, and after much teaching, he eventually learned to ask before sniffing, "Can I smell you?" Strange behavior, yes, but amazingly no one was ever offended by his sniffing. This particular habit came after his diagnosis, however, so I began to explain to people that it was one of the ways he learned about the world around him. Sometimes he would tell the person what they smelled like to him. "You smell like bacon." I would explain to them that he likes bacon so that means he likes the way they smell. One of his beloved teachers always "smells like Christmas" to him (to this day, he says she smells like Christmas - I think he "smells" her love for him). She’s VERY special, wouldn’t you say?

There were other things, so many other things, that should have been red flags to me, to his pediatrician, to his daycare teachers, but we just didn’t see it -rather, we didn't recognize it for what it was. For a long time after his diagnosis, I blamed myself for not seeing it earlier. I knew he was different, uniquely Daniel, but I was enamored of his peculiarities, and not troubled by most of them. Some things did, like screaming in crowds, or his apparent agitated hyperactivity at church fellowships where he seemed to almost vibrate with energy, running like a wild child, making these squealing noises while he "danced" his loose limbed complex whole body movement dances. These things bothered me, but didn’t concern me. To me, he was just "all boy".