1 Mom Sums Up Perfectly Why It's Still So Surprising to See Our Kids Grow Up

Liz Petrone is a mom of four adorable kids, but no matter how many times she's done it before, it's still incredibly hard for her to watch them grow up. The blogger recently took to Facebook to explain what happened when, for the first time, she wasn't able to lift her daughter (her third child) out of her bed. It's bittersweet for all parents to watch their kids grow up, but it was this small moment that had Liz wanting to scream, "but I wasn't ready yet!"

"I couldn't lift her," she wrote in the emotional post. "I had to instead gently nudge her into a state of semi-consciousness and walk her away. . . I don't know why this surprises me, or why it makes my heart ache. I've been through this before, twice already, and will be through it at least once more before we're done. Children grow. It's a thing. I get it. Except I'm not sure I do, not deep down in my mama-heart anyway, which is where the ache is."

Every parent can relate to that "mama heart," and for Liz, that means learning to accept that she may not be able to carry her daughter ever again. This moment also has her thinking about the times in the past when she held her daughter Gabby and wanted to put her down to "hold something else: my dinner, my husband, my sanity." We have a feeling she'll be holding her youngest child a little bit tighter now.

"It's my mama heart that is proud of her too, for all of those steps and the steps yet to come, of course," Liz wrote. "Watching her and her sister and brothers grow is like having a front row ticket to the most gorgeous show in the whole world. But man is it going by fast."

She closed her note with a final message to the moms who have ever been tired of carrying their children, reminding them to not take these moments for granted. "I know it ain't always easy," she wrote. "If you need someone to hold your little so you can eat dinner, my arms are free."