A mum's powerful open letter about parenting has gone viral for all the right reasons.
Nicki Fretty Wilson wrote that a recent visit to Target had left her "overcome with emotions".
"Almost every customer in the store were young moms. Many had 2 or more kids," she said. "Trying to jump out of the basket, bargaining to open the Halloween candy, petitioning (some with tears) to revisit the toy aisle for more, some tots were just rattling off rapid-fire questions while mom stared off into space an
d nodded....we all know the scene."
She recalled how some of the mums were smiling, although "most look frazzled frazzled and panicked that something was about to blow- either literally or the bandwidth for shopping with toddlers was a fraying rope before the tantrums set in".
"And I looked at my basket. It was empty. Not from stuff, afterall, I was there b/c the essentials at home (toilet paper, trash bags, paper towels) were literally gone," she continued. "No, my basket didn’t have a toddler hanging over the side squeezing applesauce all over themselves. My side didn’t have a tiny hand to hold, or little body to step on when they fell over for the umpteenth time. My basket didn’t have diapers or wipes or organic squeezie pouches. And my empty basket made my heart ache a little....ok, a lot.
"So, I allowed myself to be a momentary creeper. I just pulled back, parked my cart and watched all the sweet mamas. I wanted to say what all the elderly ladies used to say when they saw me in Target at 8a- 'enjoy it. It goes fast,' or 'I remember when mine were that age.'"
However, she explained that she resisted - as "those words don’t mean anything when you are in the thick of it with little kids".
"They don’t mean anything when your days are intricately timed between snacks and naps," she continued. "They don’t mean anything when you want to talk to an adult, but you can’t get a full thought finished, let alone a sentence.
"They don’t mean anything until you are in Target alone randomly one day after dropping off your middle schooler, hoping he remembered his algebraic equations. And you look around at all the young moms and oddly remember how badly you wanted freedom, yet the ache that when you HAVE the freedom you so deeply desire, it is quite frankly, pretty lonely even on the great days. "
She ended the post with a message for the "mamas of littles."
"Enjoy it all, because it GOES. And you don’t realize how much it goes because it is always going," she wrote. "You will look up and see a young man sitting next to you in the passenger seat before you know it. Don’t miss it- even though there is nothing you can do to hold it."
The post has really struck a chord with parents. It has more than 19,000 reactions, 3,500 comments and 19,000 shares.
You can read her post in full here. 
