About a month ago I started to feel anxious. S was getting close to 3 years old and he still wasn't potty trained. More and more of his peers have been trained and it seemed like he's one of the last ones. He starts preschool in September and has to be able to toilet entirely on his own.

S has been using the potty to pee on and off for over a year now. It was just a matter of getting him to use it all the time and to get him to poop on it also. And it was also a matter of training ourselves to regularly take him to the bathroom whether we're at home or we're out. I think that has been one of our biggest challenges.

In the past week, something clicked. S is happy to go to the potty whenever we remind him and often he will exclaim that he has to go, runs to the potty, rips off his pants and diaper/underwear and go. He has also overcome his fear of pooping on the potty. This has been a very pleasant surprise for us! For 5 days in a row he has pooped willingly.

I'm sure we're in for a lot of accidents and set backs but we're happy with this progress. But then again we're not surprised that this is how his potty training is going to go. S is just the type of kid that "gets it" when he's good and ready.

S has developed a taste for sweets. Up until he was 2 1/2 he didn't show much interest in sweets like cookies, cake and candies. Then Halloween hit and he got some candy. We let him try it and he was curious but not too keen.

One day he wanted to try some Smarties. He sat at the dining room table with anticipation as I opened up a tiny box of Smarties for him. He gingerly took them out of the box and lined them up on the table. He then announced that he was going to try one. He picked a green one and began to lick it. I asked him "What does it taste like?" He responded, "It's sweet!" He licked and licked and a green river of drool ran down his chin. He then bit into the Smartie and exclaimed, "It's crunchy!!" The rest of the Smarties were not given as much care. Half way through the box, though, he decided that he had had enough and left the table.

Since then, S has been exposed to a variety of chocolates. We've given him bits of chocolate from various chocolatiers and amazingly his favourite is bittersweet--the darker, the better. He usually only wants a few bitefuls (he has even given back pieces when he feels he's had enough). He has graduated to enjoy chocolate desserts like brownies, cake, cookies and ice cream.

It's interesting to observe how S's tastes are changing. We're just sighing with relief that he's not a chocoholic--yet!