Freud is in the house.

This week Dutch bit me. She's never done that before. She's never been a hitter/kicker/biter, but lately, in her insane fits of rage, she's been attempting violence. I say "attempting" because it's really not fully-realized violence. When she gets pissed off, she makes this horrible scrunched-up face and says "I'm going to HIT YOU!!!" and even sometimes kind of cocks her arm back, as if for a terrible killing blow. But you can almost hear the conflict in her brain:

Id: MAD!!!! SOOOOOOOO MAAAAAAAAD!!!!!! HATE MAMA!!!!!! HATE HER!!!!!
Super-Ego: It is Taboo. You cannot hit your mother, who is the Source of All. The fabric of the universe will be rent asunder, and we will fall into the abyss.
Ego: Also, you'll get a time-out.
Id: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! SHE STOPS ME FROM DOING WHAT I WANT!!!! MUST HIT HER!!!!!!!!
Super-Ego: Don't do it. Taboo.
Ego: Let's work out a compromise. Why don't you weakly slap your hand against her arm with approximately enough force to make a butterfly slightly dizzy? Oh, perfect. Darn it, you still got a time-out.

Cook and I both have a hard time not giggling when she does this. However, she did actually bite me fairly hard. Not enough to make a mark, but it shocked me, particularly since she'd been perfectly happy about twelve seconds before, AND she didn't threaten before striking. An alarming precedent! Id is taking control!

Comments

Joel said…
R.A. and I just spend at least 5 minutes laughing about this. I feel like I sympathize the most with the ego, time-outs should always be avoided. Plus- ego is like some guy on a bus sitting between a sociopath and a zen mystic.

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