Mom Speed

No, I’m not talking about any illegal uppers parents may or may not use. Or even the legal ones—I already discussed that here.

I’m talking about what leaves us Mom Tired—going Mom Speed. Yes, it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light.

As far as I can tell moms have three speeds. The easiest to understand would be Zero.

When you have Zero left—no energy, no thoughts, not even enough guilt to make you fake energy and thoughts, you reach Zero. The crash point. You crash, passing out entirely. This state can only be interrupted by sounds from the child(ren), the slightest of which will bring you up to

Mom Speed

This varies only slightly from Ludicrous Speed. When you’re walking Mom Speed, the automatic doors at the store just don’t open fast enough for you. When you work at Mom Speed, you can do as many chores in two hours as your pre-kids self did in a week. And, when needed, Mom Speed can take you from having-coffee-in-your-pjs to Oh-crap-out-the-door (ready for carline, workout, and errands) in 22 seconds flat because you know the children will be going…

Kid Speed

You make that 22-second coffee-to-car dash because you know it will take the kid four minutes to buckle himself into his own car seat.

And you patiently,deliberately, coldbloodly wait out the aforesaid four minutes of buckling because you know it’s faster than the twenty minute tantrum that will ensue if you even think about helping.

Good thing we’re really good at shifting gears!