15 Slow Things That Move Faster Than My Toddler

Yesterday morning I spent close to 10 minutes watching my 2-year-old put her sock on. She kept getting the edge caught in between her last two toes. When I offered help, she refused the way toddlers do with their newfound independence. “I do it,” she’d say, as she pulled away from me with her brow furrowed. Then she gingerly continued the slowest sock application ever.

Both of my toddlers are slow, but one is much slower than the other. So slow, even slow things move faster than she does. Things like:

1. Rocks

2. Anything in a crock pot

3. Lines at the DMV

4. The phases of the moon

5. The three-toed sloth (who moves at a maximum of 10 feet per minute, which is about 8 feet more than my child)

6. Rewind function on a VHS player

7. Global warming

8. The first half of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”

9. The line of succession to the British throne

10. Me getting through all my laundry

11. Pregnancy

12. A decade

13. The Tour de France

14. Evolution

15. The decomposition of a Keurig K-cup

This doesn’t just happen with putting on clothes—it’s everything from brushing teeth, eating, bathing, to getting out of the car (good Lord, my child is so slow getting out of the car). It takes less time for the Earth to orbit the sun than it does for this toddler to get from her car seat onto the ground.

Nothing has been a greater lesson in patience than the speed of my toddlers doing anything. Maybe by the time they are 18, their speed will almost be as fast as global warming?