By Michaela Gordoni
Hoda Kotb left the TODAY show in January to stay at home with her two daughters — one of whom was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
“When you say goodbye to something you love, even though it’s right, it’s like your heart’s broken and on display,” the former host said of leaving TODAY.
In her last episode, Kotb’s daughters, Haley, 8, and Hope, 6, joined her on set. Haley was concerned about Kotb’s co-host, Jenna Hager Bush, who was very sad to see Kotb depart.
Haley “goes, ‘I’m worried about Jenna,’” Kotb recalled. “Jenna was holding and rocking her, and Haley was sitting there looking like she was protecting Jenna. Some things can be super sad and super beautiful, and that’s what that was.”
Since retiring from the show, Kotb started a wellness app, Joy 101. It’s focused on meditation, happiness and wellbeing.
“It’s really cool to just realize that there’s so much more to life,” she said. “I wasn’t able to bear witness to my kids’ daily lives because of what I was doing. I got to see Haley sing ‘What a Wonderful World’ at 9:15 a.m. — I would have missed that. I used to think life was the big things, but it really is all the stuff that happens in between.”
Hope needs a lot of care for her health condition, and Kotb is relieved to be looking after her.
“It’s kind of constant care for Hope. We’re monitoring her 24/7,” said Kotb. “She was getting shots — four or five a day — every day for a year. Now she is getting them less frequently because we have some other means to get her what she needs, but there’s a lot to it.”
“Some kids can have sweets and she can’t. If she’s up in the night, we have to take care of her at night,” she said.
Despite that, Hope is happy, healthy and vibrant.
Kotb said she’s an “amazing kid, and we have to watch her. Diabetes is a part of her, but not all of her. I hope it shapes her but never defines her.
“I really wanted to and needed to be here to watch over her. So, whenever she needs anything, and it can happen at night, multiple times, I’m up — I’m up, up, up,” she said.
Related: Hoda Kotb Says Daughter ‘On The Mend’ After Hospitalization
Her former co-host, Savannah Guthrie, testified that there were many nights she knew Kotb hadn’t “slept a wink” because she was up with Hope but still came in with a bright smile on her face.
“Hope is fine for most of the day. There are just moments where you have to watch her,” Kotb explained. “I was totaling it up — five minutes at breakfast, five minutes at lunch, five minutes at dinner, sometimes overnight. Add that up, that’s a half-hour. So for 23 and a half hours, she’s every other kid. So I try to remember that.”
She hopes that Hope never thinks that Kotb left TODAY because of Hope’s health issues.
“It wasn’t that alone,” Kotb said of her decision. “But if you look at it cumulatively, it was a part of that decision.”
She’s happy to be at home, even though the new schedule is taking some getting used to for all of them.
“I pick up my guitar a lot more just because I can,” Kotb says. “I go on walks with the other moms from the ‘burbs here after dinner and I love that. Things I didn’t do before because I was too tired.”
It give her heart peace just to be around her kids.
“Sometimes I’m right there working in my office, and they’ll run up to the window and wave to me and throw up a heart [with their hands],” she said. “They’re fine because they want me to be here, they’re just happy to see me, and then they’ll go off and play.”
It’s great that Kotb now has the opportunity to be the mom she’s wanted to be.
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