Kelly RipaandMark Consuelosare celebrating their sonJoaquin’s 19th birthday!
The couple marked the day with respective Instagram posts on Thursday, showing photos of their youngest child — who’s on the wrestling team at the University of Michigan — throughout the years.
“Happy 19th birthday @joaquinconsuelos 💙💛 we love you sooooooo much! You will forever be my newborn. 🎉🎉🎉🎂🎂🎂” Ripa, 51,wrote on Thursday beside a photo collageof her son in his wrestling uniforms and at graduation.
TheLive with Kelly and Ryanco-host also shared a number of snaps of her Instagram Story featuring Joaquin. Several images showed Joaquin with his dad, while another featured him in a helicopter with Ripa and ABC journalist,David Muir.
In Consuelos' post, he shared a close-up photo of Joaquin wearing a straw hat and smiling at the camera.
“Happy 19th bday Quino. We love you buddy!!” the proud dadwrote beside the image.
Like his wife, Consuelos also shared some photos and videos in honor of Joaquin to his Instagram Story.
The clips showed Joaquin competing in a match and wrestling with his father as a child, while other snaps showed him with his mom and older siblings,Michael, 24, andLola, 20.
Earlier in the day, Ripagave a sweet shout-out to her youngest childonLive with Kelly and Ryanand candidly spoke to co-hostRyan Seacrestabout how having Joaquin “100% seems like yesterday” and “it doesn’t make sense.”
Ripa explained that she was looking through photos of her son to create a birthday video tribute and got emotional about how much he’s grown over the years.
“When you see how tiny he is in his first wrestling tournament, he’s so skinny and so tiny. And I was like, ‘Hopefully this is just a phase.’ But compared to now, it’s just like… I just can’t really explain it to you,” she said.
“You blink, and when parents would say this to me, I would tune them out… cause they would say, ‘You know, the days are long but the years are short,'” Ripa continued. “And I’m sitting there with three kids going, ‘The years are long too!’ You know what I mean? And then suddenly you blink and they’re gone.”
Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos and son Joaquin.Kellyripa/Instagram
Back in September, Ripa opened up on her show aboutdropping Joaquin off at college, sharing, “It was hard. It was really hard.” (Lola is currently studying at NYU, while Michaelgraduated virtuallyfrom Tisch School of Arts in May 2020.)
“We dropped him off at school and we gave him a hug — it was actually brutally painful,” she recalled. “And I said, ‘I did not realize that 18 years would go so fast.’ And he didn’t say anything, he was just giving me a hug. But he turned to walk away and I said, ‘Wait, Joaquin, one more!’ And he kept walking. And I knew that it was happening to him too, the emotion.”
“It’s one of those things where you can never be ready,” Ripa added. “We’ve done it before, but the other two, they stayed in New York, so we knew they were there, even though their visits weren’t as frequent as we thought.”
source: people.com
