Last of the Summer Camping Series 2023: Papamoa Beach Holiday Park
What a summer that was! JV made sure we made the most of the bank holidays and strategically planned our annual leaves around them. Iker ran down slopes, across grassy fields, through pathways, and on the beach; he rode his trike, kicked balls, played in the pool, and went on playground swings. We counted shells, had plenty of ice cream, chased sunset, and witnessed the moon rise from the ocean’s horizon. We let him be a kid as long as it was safe and we weren’t disturbing anyone. Good food, good company, and family make a great wholesome holiday for the books.
Chasing sunset, Papamoa Beach
Though Summer felt like it came and went so quickly, these fond memories and happy experiences seem to stretch out that time a little bit more. One marker of just how much time passed is the exponential rate of development Iker displays.
My baby is more than halfway to turning two and he continues to show us how much he absorbs and learns quietly every day. One night before bedtime, he was playing with his Tomy Hide and Squeak Eggs. I was mildly amazed to witness him match the colours of the egg shell “face” to that of the chick inside, but I was very surprised to find that he can now also match the bottom of the eggs’ shapes against that of the egg carton! He was showing some interest in posting blocks through a shape sorter, so maybe he’s mastering shapes right now.
He also demonstrated that he recognises colour names when I was changing his nappy, the Fat Brain Dimpl toy occupying his attention, and I asked him to pop the pink one and he correctly pointed and popped it. I asked for the other colours one by one to make sure it wasn’t a fluke and sure enough, he pointed to each, looking pleased with himself.
How amazing is it that we didn’t ever sit him down with a school poster to “teach” what each shape and colour is, but through sportscasting his interactions with his toys, he picked up on these concepts like a champ.
Iker at 1 year and 7 mos. lining up these wooden animal figures
At 19 mos, Iker loves to climb and explore the limits of his body and use the tools he sees us using. He finds it exhilarating to climb up his Pikler triangle slide and then walking down it, experiments getting on and off different heights in a variety of ways, the latest being going down the couch arms down first.
He loves browsing his picture books and adores animals (whether in person, on TV, or a cartoonish drawing). He gets excited with all types of vehicles, has an excellent appetite, matched with proficient fine motor skills to eat independently using utensils, and is the absolute sweetest little person asking for cuddles all the time.
He can follow instructions if there’s nothing else he’d rather do like put a book back on a shelf, place the puzzle pieces back in a basket, close a door, or hand an object to one of us in another room. He can do knobbed puzzles independently, but wants your participation in exploring books and squealing in delight at his favourite animals in them. He has a special bond with his glamma, who’s staying with us for five months, and sometimes prefers her company to mine.
He’s starting to test out sounding syllables and short words (no, me, mama, dada), but has retained the use of basic sign language (milk, more, please, go). He’ll “count” items that look similar by pointing at them one by one, and exclaim at objects he recognises outside and in books (airplanes, cows, trucks, buses, giraffes, elephants), and make gestures he associates with these (e.g. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star for stars, The Wheels On The Bus for big vehicles, The Itsy Bitsy Spider when it rains, touching his neck and then shooting his pointer finger up to mean “giraffe”, and holding his elbow with one hand while moving the other arm up and down for “elephant”, among a few). He’ll clap for himself when he’s proud of what he did, and would dance Baby Shark randomly.
He is a joy to watch and I am always grateful to God that I get to see him grow big, strong, clever, curious, and sweet! I let him know all this everyday and I know he absorbs it all.
Much like the paths of trees in my Arboretum above, this new hobby has blossomed and grown this Summer.
I bought two games from a local online shop as a Christmas gift for the two of us. I wanted a date night activity—which, with a 1 year old baby, is limited to the vicinity of our home—that doesn’t always have to involve binging a show together on the couch. From there, my obsession and confidence in picking out games that I think we’ll like grew. Here’s a roundup of the games we enjoyed in our starter collection:
Patchwork by Uwe Rosenberg
JV completed a 7×7 quilt first and later won the game.
This polyomino tile laying game is specifically for 2 players. The rules are very simple so it’s easy to learn, but there are lots of opportunities to play strategically! In this game, you and your opponent are trying to create the better quilt (quilting experience unnecessary), so naturally, the person who last used a needle goes first (it’s JV). Do you pick the shape that you want even if it doesn’t give you payout in the hopes of completing the perfect 7×7 square that nets you massive bonus points? Do you pick the bigger, expensive piece to cover more blank space, get paid more buttons, and risk opening up the nicer pieces for your opponent to pick? Or do you sacrifice your number of turns to obtain a precious 1×1 square to patch up any holes in your quilt? The economy of space, shape, buttons, time, and the pieces that become available next turn makes for a tight, thinky, but fun and quick game. We love it.
Pandemic by Matt Leacock
Cured! All the diseases have been neutralised.
Too soon? We are a team of specialists attempting to stop four diseases from spreading worldwide, but infections and outbreaks lie in wait at every corner.
This game probably plays best at 4 but at two, we’ve managed to beat it… once. LOL. This was one of my two first purchases, which I both chose because they’re ✨cooperative✨. Let’s just say I like it better when JV’s on my side. This is another thinky game where each decision, even early on, could impact your success or failure. It takes us an hour to finish, and sometimes, we have to pause and continue another day (I take a photo so we know the state of affairs when we packed up.) It’s an excellent gateway game, especially for sore losers like me.
Splendor Duel by Marc André and Bruno Cathala
Unimpressed by my sneaky victory
As the name suggests, this is a game made exactly for two players, jewelers competing for the Royalty’s favour and patronage but completing any of the three pre-determined winning conditions. JV didn’t appreciate the gameplay much, but I liked the mechanics and the excitement of the very true-to-life concept of, “money begets money”—or in this case, “jewels beget more jewels”. Each card that you pay for using jewels would decrease the number of jewels or pearls you need to shell out (get it?) on your next purchase. There is always a finite amount of gems for the taking, and replenishing the market has a consequence. The game time is a decent length, maybe a little over 30 mins. It comes in a small box that surprisingly packs a big game!
Arboretum by Dan Cassar
In Arboretum (shown in the first photo), you and up to three other opponents compete to create the most beautiful pathways of trees. On your turn, you draw two cards, play a card, and discard one. Simple? JV doesn’t want to play it after a tiring day because there’s too much brain power required. You can draw cards from the draw pile OR yours or opponents’ discard piles, so when you discard, you do so while keeping in mind that it might just be the card your opponent is after. When you play a card by placing a tree in your garden, you’re trying to make sure you’re setting yourself up for obtaining the most points with this play. And at the end of the game, only the player who kept the highest sum of cards of a tree specie has the right to score that specie. Don’t tell me you laid all the cards of that specie into your garden?! Now it can’t score! Every turn and action is agonizing in this deceptively zen-looking game with little rules overhead. I’m discovering that I love that kind of problem solving myself.
Azul by Michael Kiesling
The King of Portugal is looking for a designer for his mosaic wall. You win by creating the most beautiful (i.e. highest scoring) wall using pretty and wonderfully tactile resin tiles. It could definitely be a friendly game, but JV and I are quite competitive and sometimes, winning means interfering with the other’s opportunity to score. It’s a quick game at two players, and we often play two or more games of it back to back. Beautiful components, quick to learn, strategic puzzle game.
Carcassone by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede
Easy to learn, visually appealing on a table, and can take up to five players. I almost always lose in this game, and it sometimes takes too long for me. You build the province of renaissance Carcassonne by placing tiles containing pieces of a road, a castle, a monastery, or in the version we own, river. It’s a puzzle that could be played slightly cooperatively, checking in with the other players where best to place your tile (and then ultimately deciding to choose something else entirely), but of course in our marriage, we’ll never close out that castle that would let the other one score! I sometimes play based on the desire to complete the puzzles and creating a beautiful kingdom, but other times, I want to leave my husband’s knights in the dust of my farmers’ toil. I promise it will make sense if/when you play.
Games on my To Buy list:
Paint the Roses – Alice in Wonderland themed, social deduction, cooperative game.
Romi Rami – simple, quick, beautiful card game where you aim to score the highest by choosing which contracts to fulfill.
Heat: Pedal to the Metal – an F1 racing game, where you decide when speed is worth heating up your engine to the point of breaking.
Nana (7 in Japanese) – Japanese game reskinned to Trio in the US. I heard even kids can join in on the fun and it comes in a small box that’s great for taking with you to travel!
There are more but these are top of the list for me. I’ll post more when we get to play them!
(Waihi beach, January 2024) Off to the beach in style. On my trike. On a wagon. Pulled by Dad.
There are many things that I thought I was prepared for in infant parenthood that makes me laugh now. However, one that completely blindsided me was the hurt I didn’t know I’d have to experience this early when another child (4-5 y/o) sulkily told his mum that he doesn’t want to play with Iker, only with kid X and Y. We were at their place with another family, so it’s basically hearing him ask his mum to kick us out because baby Iker was killing his vibe. Earlier that day, that same kid told me to my face that he doesn’t like me. I’m ashamed to admit that I almost said I don’t like him either but I begrudgingly reminded myself that he was probably in that phase of exploring social interactions, boundaries, and probably felt threatened by new people.
In that same weekend, Iker and I were in the campsite’s playroom and he started approaching another toddler playing with a big truck. I’m usually quick to redirect Iker, saying it’s not his turn with a toy, but this time, the other toddler was quicker and he pushed Iker who then fell backwards on his butt. 😢
I advocate a lot for children and their need for respect and agency, but let’s face it. They can be dicks sometimes.
Back to the cliquish kid: it took a lot in me to continue as if I didn’t hear or didn’t mind, and to not sweep my little innocent baby up in my arms and leave right then. The parents tried to tell him it’s not a nice attitude and I don’t have quarrel with them, but my gosh, I was not prepared and probably will not ever be. I wanted to cuddle my baby up and protect him from the all the hurtful things this world could and would throw at him.
wook at my wittle innocent, smiley baby. Who wouldn’t want to be around him??
But it doesn’t work that way. I know. My job as a parent is to guide him so that he’d know how to navigate those sticky situations. I know that when real life hits while you’ve been in a cocoon of protection all your life, then it’s going to be a messy mush of unformed, liquid, never-to-be-a-butterfly waiting to happen.
I got a little carried away with the metaphor, but you get it. So, life. We owe it to Iker to expose him to this wonderful world we live in and hopefully unlock and recognise teachable moments when they present themselves. I don’t know when we made the very deliberate decision to ensure that we’ll still enjoy the things we do even with a baby in tow. Was it when this little boy was only but dream? Was it through infertility, making plans of when it happens for us, we’d be THIS kind of parents. Was it when I got pregnant? I’m sure it wasn’t while I was sleep deprived in those first few weeks.
Ōhope beach, January 2024
A year and almost a half on, I’d say we’re doing well. We found a way to cultivate the us and our individual selves while also including Iker in life. We have a responsibility to Iker to show him that we are Mum and Dad but we still have fun and have identities beyond being parents; that our lives didn’t stop because he was born—his birth enriched it.
So yes, we have plenty of quiet, just-us days at home, in a world of cuddles and kisses and secret languages that only Iker and we know; but we also make it a point to regularly see friends with Iker (and all his baby stuff) in tow, creating fun, noisy memories with them. When the weather is nice, JV would sometimes haul us to a spontaneous picnic by the beach, never daunted by the admin of it all; and in these small trips, Iker discovered the fun of chasing birds and running around the grass. We make time for personal hobbies and side projects, that although mostly invisible to Iker, still models having different interests and preferences for spending their time. We’ll happily read books of his choosing (once, twice, thrice) at any time of the day, but show him we read our own books too. We have small, normal moments like mealtimes together or passing the time at the playground, but we don’t shy away from grander plans like camping over long weekends or overseas travel.
A random playground outside the Ōhope camping grounds
We have one last Summer camping trip planned, and then we’ll lie low until later in the year for our trip to the Philippines and then Japan.
Above: Snaps from our Ohope Top 10 Holiday Parks and Tasman Holiday Park Waihi trips
The shape of our days, our rhythms, how we parent and maintain our us-ness are always evolving. But one thing that will not change is our commitment to always include Iker. He isn’t an inconvenience. He is a part of this family and has the right to experience our beautiful world as much as anyone.
We are officially a daycare family! Well, technically an “Early Learning Centre” (ELC) family, as the teachers like to remind us all the time. And with this new life update come all the bugs and sickness that wipe out the entire household and lay ruin to weekend plans, yay!
They told us to be ready for the emotional onslaught that THE day would bring. It’s totally fine to shed some tears; it happens to us all, they said. Then why, not only were our eyes firmly tearless, but they crinkled with smiles for the promise of a productive work day?
I think it is a combination of two things, but before that, a little context. My mom had to return home to the Philippines in the middle of October, but the ELC won’t have a slot for Iker until mid-November, and by this time, I’ve already been back to work since August.
Ok, combination of two things, go. First: after the relentless four weeks of working from home while caring for the baby–juggling meetings, professional commitments, and domestic necessities–by the end of it, we were begging for and grateful for the reprieve of trained Early Childhood teachers taking our baby off our hands for a full work day. Second: it may have something to do with our mindset of viewing our baby as a capable, intelligent human being who can adapt and develop skills this early to make their own connections in the world.
Riiiighhhtt….
The thing that we semi-didn’t consider / fully-ignored was that there would be dayS in a week (emphasis on plural) where daycare will refuse to take in the child enrolled if the child was exhibiting potentially contagious symptoms like diarrhea, fever, rashes and what have you and will only welcome them back if they’ve been symptom free for 24 hours! Of course we’d like our baby to recover here at home–because, imagine having the worse LBM of your life and you’re at a party and can’t go home to poop in your own beloved toilet (or in your own nappy in your beloved bedroom) because your parents have “work” and “need to focus”–but what that means is only having the capacity for 25% of your usual work day, if at all. So I’m not able to do the work that I’m being paid for to afford daycare who offloaded the enrollee to me. An excellent system!
The light at the end of the tunnel won’t be for another two years, other parents tell us. But I think we’ve found our rhythm and have no regrets about our choice for our baby’s dayc–Early Learning Centre. Iker is thriving and continues to surprise us all the time. These babies always be surviving. This is the new “village” helping us raise our child.
The Cruz Roads 