Mother: Rohnert Park 4-year-old who drowned was ‘water baby’

The Barringer family was wrapping up a fun-filled mid-May Sunday at a gymnastics center when they decided to head to Sonoma Racquet Club in Rohnert Park for an afternoon of swimming and barbecuing.

The family is no stranger to water. Jennifer Peterson, 33, grew up on the water, living on the sailboat her parents owned. The family has kayaks and sailboats. Both she and her husband, Jeremy, 35, are scuba-certified. Trips to the pool are a favorite family activity. The called their three boys “water babies.”

It was a sunny afternoon at the oval-shaped pool, with kids splashing and yelling. There was no lifeguard. The Barringers had swim rings, water wings and life vests. But they couldn’t find the life vest for 4-year-old Bode; he got the floatie.

Jennifer remembers doing the “mommy check” - Where’s 6-year-old Forest? Where’s 18-month-old Cazadero? Where’s Bode?

“Nobody saw Bode,” she said last week in a phone interview, her first public comments since that May 15 afternoon.

She knew he wouldn’t have walked away. She looked into the pool.

There he was, in the deep end, face down, his long gold hair swirling.

Much of what happened next is a blur for Peterson. She remembers jumping in and pulling Bode from the pool and immediately beginning CPR. For a second, she thought she heard Bode’s heartbeat. Another person at the pool who was CPR-certified took over. First-responders arrived.

“I fell to the ground,” Peterson said. “I had a female police officer comforting me. One of the things she said was it was a good sign that when I was administering CPR he vomited.”

He died later that afternoon.

On May 21, Bode’s family held a biodegradable balloon release at the Racquet Club up on a wooded hill surrounded by redwood trees. In the balloons were wildflower seeds donated by the Petaluma Seed Bank. There were family and friends and neighbors and musicians and drums and people singing.

With the balloons left over from Saturday, they invited kids and families to play with them Sunday - popping them between their chests, target practice with Nerf guns.

“Life goes on, and we’re doing what we need to be doing,” Peterson said.

The Racquet Club pool reopened that Monday, the same day Bode’s two brothers started swim lessons at Sonoma State University.

Bode was meant to be there, too.