Joanna Gaines’ Instagram post totally nails how bittersweet it is to watch your kids grow up

Milestone moments aren’t just for parents of babies. Designer Joanna Gaines shared the details of a momentous occasion on Instagram this week: her oldest son getting his driver’s permit.

That might be a shock to you to those of you who have watched the Gaines’ family grow up on HGTV, but Drake is 15 years old now.

As any parent knows, the years just fly by when you’re raising kids. Understandably, the fact that her firstborn is now old enough to get behind the wheel of a car had Gaines feeling more than a little emotional.

“Drake waited in line for an hour and finally got called up to get his drivers permit and then my 15 year old little boy drove home with Chip and all of a sudden he is all grown up,” she wrote. Watching Drake check off that particular milestone was especially head-spinning for the mom since she’s got a toddler at home, too.

“It’s crazy because this morning I spent most of my time teaching Crew how to go up and down the stairs because he is still so wobbly (his weight is not distributed evenly quite yet). He used to reach for my hand when climbing the stairs so I could help him and now he insists on doing it himself, ” she continued. “The gap between these two circumstances with my boys is wide but the feeling on both is somehow the same.”

Fair warning, the ending of Gaines’ post is going to have you wiping tears from your eyes. “So many hard and beautiful moments of beginnings and ends,” she wrote. “Parenthood is all about training these babies up to eventually let them go. May we savor all the big and quiet moments along the way.”

Not wanting to miss any of those moments was a big part of the reason Gaines and her husband Chip decided to end their hit show Fixer Upper in 2018. With a family of fast-growing kids (the couple are also parents to kids Duke, Ella Rose, and Ella Kay), Gaines posted on her blog at the time that she and her husband wanted to step away from the show to give “lots of love and attention to both our family and our other businesses.” That’s left time to savor all those special events in their children’s lives—whether it’s a step toward adulthood or simply a step up the staircase. But fans shouldn’t worry: the couple is still making time for work, too. Their own network is set to launch this summer.