A mom and dad heading out the door were powerless to prevent their daughter escaping off on her scooter at high speed.
Fiona McGrath from Dublin, Ireland, shared doorbell cam footage of her and husband Eoin’s reaction to seeing Mina take off down the street. She later posted the clip to her TikTok @fi1710.
“We were just going out for an evening walk before bedtime and my daughter has no patience so off she went,” McGrath told Newsweek.
McGrath and Eoin were tending to their 10-month-old son Sam, who was in the pram on the clip, when they heard a shout of “Go!” from Mina just behind them.
“We were discussing if he was warm enough and needed a blanket when Mina took off,” McGrath said.
Maybe it was the fact they were focusing on Sam, or the exhaustion of being parents of two young kids, but neither Eoin nor McGrath showed much in the way of a reaction to Mina zooming away from them.
Writing in the caption accompanying the TikTok video, McGrath joked: “Toddler has no chill, parents no reflexes.”
“I didn’t see it at first and my husband thought she would stop as she’s never done that before,” McGrath said. “We then realised she wasn’t stopping and I ran after her.”
The impact of sleep deprivation on reaction time is well documented. In 2012, a study published in the Asian Journal of Sports Medicine saw researchers investigate the effect of just one night of sleep deprivation on anaerobic performance and reaction time.
They found that while it had no effect on anaerobic performance, there was an adverse effect on cognitive functions and, in particular, reaction time.
Thankfully, while McGrath may have been slow out of the blocks, she was able to recover the situation quickly and Mina was never in any harm.
I caught her just off camera, we live in a cul du sac,” she said.
On the way back from the walk, McGrath realized the whole episode had likely been captured on the family doorbell camera.
Watching the footage back, McGrath could see the funny side in her daughter’s sudden burst of speed and their own slow response to it.
“We were able to laugh about it when we watched it back as we knew everything was ok. We didn’t realise Mina had shouted go until we heard it on the video,” McGrath said.
“My husband thought she would stop and once she was off the curb and hadn’t fallen over he thought she was grand, as we could see the cul du sac was empty and there were no cars around.”
It’s certainly proven popular among those watching on TikTok. “Legend has it Mina is still going,” one user wrote. “Dad’s like ‘welp,’” another joked with a third quipping: “I love the way he just watched.”
McGrath will certainly be keeping a close eye on Mina next time they head out together.
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