Still Perplexed

Rummaging through my collection of partially written posts this afternoon, I stumbled up on this from May 29, 2009:

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Ruby asked for a snack this afternoon, like she always does.
I reminded her that she'd had her afternoon snack at school.

She didn't have a meltdown.
She just nonchalantly told me that, actually, she didn't.
She passed on the school snack because she wasn't hungry then.
She wasn't insistent, just informative.
She wasn't lying.
She looked at me as though that was the most normal thing.
To pass on food.
To not feel hungry.

Maybe the modeling and the language are helping.
Maybe she's realizing that Oscar isn't her only model.

Maybe I can relax a teeny bit.
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Well, we all know that "relaxing a teeny bit" is not my forte. I did, though, for a couple of days. Ruby continued to tell me that she was passing on afternoon snack at school and I continued to give her snack at home. I was downright thrilled she was starting to hear that voice in her that had never before grown louder than a whisper saying "Hey, I think I'm full".

On day four I got suspicious. I started asking her if she was SURE she didn't have snack at school. She was calm, clear, believable. But I still asked her teacher.

"Ruby? Skip snack? Never. No, Ruby always eats snack," she replied.

And so I am back to the beginning. Wondering whether we've created this obsession with food with all the restrictions we need in our family to keep Oscar safe, or if she feels the constant hunger too. Today, she started asking for snack at 9am. She asked every 5-10 minutes until it was finally time for snack. I know, some kids are just always hungry, but I can't can't can't give her food every time she is hungry. It is too complicated in our Prader-Willi household and her metabolism cannot handle it. I'm concerned about the extra weight on her slightly compromised skeleton. I'm concerned that she also has some sort of genetic eating disorder. And I'm mostly concerned that however we handle the situation will only exacerbate her obsession.