Jenna Bush Hager’s children are growing up so fast!

The Today show star revealed how she is coming to terms with her eldest daughter, Mila, hitting new milestones after their family attended a concert together in New York.

Jenna and her husband Henry Hager took Mila and their middle child Poppy to see Grammy nominee Gracie Abrams play at Madison Square Garden during the week, an experience which sparked a profound emotion in the author.

“It was so much fun and I don’t like…I’m going through something, obviously,” she shared on Today with Jenna and Friends on Wednesday.

“My oldest is going into middle school,” she added. “For whatever reason, we sat down, and this is like, think about how embarrassing this is as a child. And just seeing how excited they were for her. I started crying. I was like, ‘This is so beautiful’…To see this concert through their eyes.”

She added that Henry went to get drinks for their family, which left her to think about how quickly Mila was growing up.

“I was just thinking, like, this could be the last time my seventh grader is cool with sitting next to her mom at a concert. In a few years, she’s going to be going with all of her buddies and not mommy,” Jenna shared. 

“And [Henry] got back and he was like, ‘Are you crying again?’ And I was like, I just was thinking time is going so fast.”

“And she’ll sit next to me and hold my hand a little,” the 43-year-old recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Don’t cry. She’s humiliated. You know, you want to keep her next to you.’ But it was so fun.”

Growing pains

Jenna and Henry share three children: Mila, 12, Poppy, nine, and Hal, five. 

Mila earned a reputation when she appeared on an episode of Today in 2022 alongside her mom, and proceeded to spill Jenna’s secrets to the delight of her co-stars.

“One time she was laughing in our living room and she peed her pants!” Mila laughed as she told the story. “You changed your pajamas!”

She also spilled that her mother rarely wore underwear, to which Jenna replied: “Thank you, Mila. Thank you so much.”

After her co-star Hoda Kotb’s exit from the show in January, the former First Daughter revealed that Mila wanted to return to the show despite her previous appearance going awry. 

“You know who really wants to do it? Mila Hager,” Jenna told E! News. “She said something very controversial. So therefore, my husband gave her a lifetime ban. We’ll see if that’s lifted, maybe for bring your kids to work day. But she hasn’t been always the most supportive, let’s just say that.”

Hoda and Jenna were incredibly close and manned Today‘s fourth hour together for years, before the 60-year-old stepped away to take care of her young daughters Haley and Hope. 

Hoda launched her own wellness platform, Joy 101, in May, hoping to help people live a “more joyful, balanced, beautiful life”.