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Kelly Ripa ’s daughter Lola Consuelos might have “stayed local” for college, but that hasn’t stopped her father Mark Consuelos from checking in on her...often. “I check in so much,” the Riverdale actor, 48, recently told US Weekly at New York Comic Con. “My daughter thinks I’m obsessed with her.”
Lola, 18, began her freshman year at New York University in August, joining her older brother Michael at the school. While Mark and Kelly still have son Joaquin at home, it seems that the Hollywood couple is suffering from a little bit of empty nest syndrome. Recalling a recent get together with his kids at the house, the dad of three said, “We had the whole gang back. As much as when you’re a young parent … you’re like, ‘I can’t wait until this is kind of easy, or you want a little more peace and quiet. Now the peace and quiet is so sad. When we get them back together in the house, it’s so nice.”
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Kelly and Mark were emotional over their daughter starting college . “#tbt 2001 from your Christening to college. In the blink of an eye. I’m not crying. You’re crying 😢 (actually Daddy’s sobbing) 😭,” the doting mom captioned a throwback photo from Lola’s baptism in August. When the time finally came to say goodbye to her daughter, the TV personality posted a heartwarming photo of herself dropping Lola off at NYU , writing: “The nest is getting roomy.........💕.”
Last month, Kelly shared her “main concern” over her kids attending college so close to home. “The whole thing is — college is where you start establishing yourself as an independent person — when you send your kid away to college, if your kid stays sort of local, you get all of the hassle of sending your kid away to college and none of the sympathy,’” the Live With Kelly and Ryan host said on On Air With Ryan Seacrest . “That’s not good because if she feels homesick, I have to say to her, ‘You can’t come home. You have to work it out.’”
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Kelly continued, “I treat it all the same; I did the same thing with my son [Michael]. I’m like, ‘You’re gonna have to figure out how to be an adult — this is when you figure it out.’”