If I may-- I just want to throw out one caution for you: please avoid making his development a competition. It doesn't matter whether your son is a bigger talker now or not, or whether he will catch up to age-peers in a big way. He's on his own development curve. Your job is to provide him with the love, stimulation and encouragement to help him be happy and fulfilled. He'll probably enjoy museums, chapter books, documentaries and many other things earlier than most children. But please don't bother with what other kids are doing and just feed him what he needs.
These are all good points, and I only got into the habit of constantly comparing him to his peers because I really thought at times that I was crazy (I'm a WAHM, so his interaction with peers is limited). I was very back-and-forth about whether he was really ahead in some things or it was just natural/normal variation of development. I want to clarify that I don't have high expectations of him (RE: the "big way" comment). I failed to add context to the point about his catching up talking--my brother's son at a very young age was EXTREMELY talkative and had an advanced vocabulary. (My nephew used words like "aerodynamic" at age 5.) His cousin's precocity in that area causes me to suspect I will also have a big talker on my hands soon enough.
Also, in regards to your son's interests-- whether it's trains or smells-- those aren't an indication of his giftedness, but instead of his interests. I don't see why you need to feel embarrassed to add that to your mom discussions! It's fun and quirky! My friends and I would have gotten a good chuckle out of a child who loved smells, and pondered where it would lead. (Also, FYI, my son is well above the DYS cutoff (and is a DYS) and he loved trains and cars as a toddler, so it's not an indication of intelligence to "not" like them.)
Phew! This makes a lot of sense. Taking this into account, I only mentioned the spice-smelling here because I had already gotten some weird looks from moms when I told them that story. So I tend not to relate it to new acquaintances anymore. I guess we'll chalk that one up to quirk (something no kid is without).
