I give myself a C plus on re-entry, but until I have more to say about that, I have other pressing questions, like:

Can somebody help me with the food thing? I can't be the only one stumped by what to feed my three year-old.

So here's the deal. Way back when I had dreads to my waist and thought meat-eaters were murderous, heartless human beings, I was perpetually on the hunt for beans and dark leafy greens. "Um, I'm a vegetarian, do you have any other options?" was my restaurant mantra. The whole concept of chicken or a hamburger made me want to heave. Eggs and cow milk? Forget it.

Then I did this project where all the food was donated by McDonald's (very long story), and I couldn't eat anything else for twenty-one days. I started eating some chicken and a little beef. A little ice cream.

Then I got pregnant and within a few months realized a voracious omnivore had taken up residence in my belly. At three am I woke up desperately hungry. Must have steak, a whole chicken, loaves of cheese. Unable to resist these tremendous forces, after a few weeks, I succumbed. He won. I ate.

When my son was born, I produced more breastmilk than anyone the nurses in the ICU --where Tenzin spent the first weeks of his life-- had ever seen. I had so many bottles from pumping they said they needed a whole refrigerator just for my milk. I tried to explain that Tenzin had required copious amounts of food even in utero.

They looked at me like I had just landed from a planet called Land of Crazy Mothers. I sighed, and went off to fill yet another bottle of milk.

Long story short, today my mornings go like this.

Me: Fast asleep. Enjoying it.

Tenzin: Climbs on top of me. Puts his hand on his chin and stares at me until I have no choice but to wake up.

Me: Yes, honey?

Tenzin: I'm hungry Mommy.

Me: Okay you have to wait a few minutes.

Tenzin: But I'm hungry Mommy.

This goes on until I get up to get him some food.

But here's the thing.

When I get upstairs to make him some food, no matter what we have in the cupboard (do people still use that word?), it takes me a good ten minutes to figure out what to give him.

My instinct is brown rice, a little broccoli, some carrots. Or maybe some grown-up oatmeal. Whole wheat toast and sliced tomato and cheese.

These are all things I would like to eat. They are all things I think he should eat. They are all things I ate when he was in my stomach.

They are all things he has trouble digesting. All things that end up with a not so great poop and stomach issues.

Daddy tells me I need to keep on with the organic baby food, mix in some fruit, some shredded chicken, some cheese or pasta, some mashed up carrots and broccoli. The baby oatmeal. Never brown rice. Nothing too acidic, like the black olives I love. No feta cheese.

But he's not a baby, I think to myself, wondering silently, guiltily, if he's got some kind of strange, mommy-created issue.

But I fed him all of that when he was a year old, I say. And that was great, Daddy says. He has a diverse palate and is open to new foods, but maybe it was too soon, he says. But I want him to eat healthily, i.e. like I did when, after I was a dreadlocked vegetarian, I was all into Aryuvedic medicine and treated every illness known to creation by eating (and serving) asparagus and shiitake mushrooms sauteed in ghee.

Whatever the reason, Daddy says, he's not ready for all that.

But the books say he should be able to eat anything.

Well the books don't know this child.

I decide to take Tenzin to the doctor, who tells me the same thing.

And then, every morning it starts all over again. Like I've never had these discussions. Like I have an uncontrollable urge to feed him, in that same way I did when he was inside of me. But now the urges come from me. Instead of him dictating to me, I want to dictate to him.

I think I'm in denial. My boy is already growing up, growing away. He has his own desires, his own separate needs.

He's outside the womb, but now more than ever, I have to learn to listen.