A memory-bank moment

Being a parent is a lot of work, and it’s stressful at times. But there are also times, I have learned firsthand, that are sublimely magnificent, times that you want to store away in your memory bank so you can take them out and remember them when you’re feeling like parenting is getting the best of you. I’ve had times like those in the last few years, especially when I watch by daughter Caitlin and son Austin play basketball. I watch them slowly develop into more confident kids off the court and competent ones on it. And I had one of those memory-bank moments just last weekend, when my almost-6-year-old daughter Olivia did something for the first time (the first time of anything’s always the best, am I right parents?). Anyway, it was at the aquatic center in Tracy, and we decided before we went that she could go down the water slide for the first time. But that’s not what I’m talking about. She told me before the slide, she would like to go off the diving board and throw her 40-pound body into 10 feet of water. She’s still learning how to swim, so I was a bit apprehensive, but I was close by in the pool and, well, this is what lifeguards are for. So she walks up the stairs and looks out at me through her oversized, fogged up Jacques Cousteau-like goggles. Then she ran. Then she jumped, tucked her legs to her belly (she specializes in cannonballs) and splooshed into the dark blue water. I laughed as I waited for her head to pop up, which it did. She doggie paddled to the side, swam to the ladder and jumped back in to ask me if she could do it all over again. Sweet. No, it wasn’t like she sunk a game-winning free throw or anything like that, but it was a huge moment in her life — and so were the next dozen times she jumped off the diving board. Heck, I didn’t have the guts to hit the diving board until I was about 10.