Joanna and Chip Gaines‘ baby, Crew, just turned one and is learning how to walk up and down stairs. The former Fixer Upper stars’ oldest child, Drake, is learning to drive. Joanna remarked about the ups and downs of raising children in a recent Instagram post of Drake walking into the DMV to get his learner’s permit, and it’s touching.
“Drake waited in line for an hour and finally got called up to get his drivers permit,” the home improvement icon wrote, “and then my 15 year old little boy drove home with Chip and all of a sudden he is all grown up.” The moment your child starts driving is an emotional one for parents. It’s one of those moments you realize your child is closer to adulthood than to diapers. For Joanna, the contrast is even starker, as the couple welcomed Crew into the world last year.
Joanna’s post goes on, “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,” she remarked. The whole experience left her with a profound thought. “The gap between these two circumstances with my boys is wide but the feeling on both is somehow the same,” she said, continuing, “So many hard and beautiful moments of beginnings and ends.”
With five kids, Chip and Joanna Gaines have seen a lot of milestones, like first steps, first lost tooth, first days of school, and all the other smaller moments. It’s all prepared her for Drake’s impending adulthood. “Parenthood is all about training these babies up to eventually let them go,” she said, before adding a poignant observation, “May we savor all the big and quiet moments along the way.”
Family means the world to Joanna and Chip Gaines, as anyone who has watched Fixer Upper can attest. The four oldest kids were a regular presence on the show (Crew was born after the show wrapped up). It’s a good bet that the kids will again be part of whatever they have planned for their upcoming Magnolia Network, starting later this year. The couple have also had to deal the tabloids making unfounded claims about a possible sixth child.
Last October, Gossip Cop busted In Touch for claiming the Gaines were expecting their sixth child. In a standard tabloid bait and switch, the headline promised a bay announcement, but the story was filled with only rumor and conjecture. Those rumors were bogus anyway, as Joanna was not pregnant at the time.
Joanna Gaines wasn’t pregnant in January either when Gossip Cop debunked a phony report from Life & Style asserting a baby was on the way. That cover story falsely proclaimed a source told it, “Everyone’s talking about how they’re having a little girl. Rumor has it they found on Christmas!” The tabloid’s dubious source even claimed there were going to be two gender reveals, “one just for the family and one for the fans, too.” Of course, there have been no gender reveals, because the story was false and there was never anything to reveal, as Gossip Cop confirmed with the couple’s rep.