I did not write a blog about our Christmas trip to Atlanta because despite seeing family and having bonding time, it was… not great. Everyone was sick, Toddler A slept terribly, we were all very stressed and cranky, and then we had a 16-hour flight delay when we returned due to snow in NYC. 5 days later, when Chris wanted to plan our travel for 2026, I was VERY wary. I was in no mood to travel ever again, nonetheless soon. But sometimes you just have to trust your spouse and suck it up, so we planned five trips for the first half of the year.
I’m so glad I let myself be vetoed, because last weekend we had the best trip we have had with Toddler A, and it wouldn’t have happened if I was stubborn. I’ll do a recap/postmortem at the end of this post about why I thought it went so well, because I have been reflecting for a week on how to make it happen again.
You may remember our Babymoon/MaybeMoon at Chatwal Lodge in the Catskills, well, it was Chris’s idea to go back there with Amari. At first, I was hesitant because there isn’t much to do there. Even the things that there are to do, are not baby-friendly. But then I realized that when we’re at home, he doesn’t do much either and he thrives with large spaces to run. There’s nothing larger than empty fields and rooms!
The trip started as every outing with children starts: late. Thankfully we only had to drive, so there were no flight delays, but we were trying out a new car seat, and since we are New Yorkers, every car trip means a new rental I have never driven or installed a car seat in. I tried to figure it out for an hour, and then I gave up and we ended up using our old car seat. Eventually we got on the road, and there was about 45 minutes of unexpected traffic which turned a 2-hour drive into a 3-hour drive. That’s a big difference with a toddler. But Ms. Rachel got us through, and we arrived just in time for dinner.
One of the best parts about this place is the food. The resort/hotel only has 14 rooms, and it is all-inclusive for food and non-alcoholic drinks. The food is so fresh and so amazing. Chris says it is the best food he has ever had at any hotel or resort, and better than at least 90% of the restaurants in NYC. That is extremely high praise, and I agree. They also had a kid’s menu, which I wasn’t expecting, so we could put in chicken fingers immediately for Toddler A while we chowed down on the first 3 courses ourselves. Surprisingly, Toddler A enjoyed a lot of our adult menu food, too, especially the bread with garlic and herb butter, and the potato leek soup. The only downside of multiple courses was that by the time we were finished with appetizers and starters and bread courses, Toddler A was totally done and wanted to be let out of his highchair. We worked around this as best as we could, eating our main courses in shifts and never once ordering a dessert but that’s ok.
We didn’t really need dessert because they had an entire “cozy concierge” menu for the room, which included room service warm chocolate chip cookies and milk. You could also order a bath kit and a teddy bear, both of which we took advantage of later in the weekend. After dinner, they drove us to our room for a room tour, where our bags were already there waiting for us. They valeted our car and for the rest of the weekend we just texted them, and they picked us up from our cabin within 5 minutes of texting. Not only was the crib already set up, but our cookies and milk were already there!
We decided to move the crib into the bathroom because 1: the bathroom was HUGE, and 2: it had a door, which we found from experience is mandatory. If Toddler A can see us, he will not sleep. The bathroom set up worked pretty well, with the main obstacle of actually having to pee during the night. We eventually figured out a solution involving tip-toeing and hand sanitizer. Surprisingly, Toddler A only woke up once every night, and always before 11 pm so we all got great sleep.
Saturday, our first full day, also happened to be Valentine’s Day and our engage-iversary. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll remember that we got engaged at Bubby’s the place we had our first date. I had brought Chris a few gifts from Bubby’s including a beanie and pancake mix. Toddler A enjoyed pulling off the wrapping paper. We headed up to the main lodge for breakfast, where Toddler A again surprised me by trying lots of the adult food including bacon and sausage along with his yogurt pouch and new love: blueberries. After breakfast, we went to the downstairs of the lounge where we played a rousing game of hide and seek. I don’t think he had ever seen an area that large with so many corners to hide. I may have been more out of breath than he was! My Oura ring tracked me a workout. Then, we found the game room where Toddler A promptly found the puzzle with the most number of small pieces (1000), and dumped it on the ground. Fun times.
When we thought he was tired enough, we went back to our cabin, and we planned to try to get him to nap. You know what they say about the best laid plans.
This was not ideal for the rest of the day’s activities, but we made it work. We watched Zootopia in bed, we ran around, we blew bubbles on the porch, we ordered in lunch to the cabin while we watched Ms. Rachel, and we read Going on a Bear Hunt approximately 800 times.
I thought he would love taking a bath in the huge bathtub, but I was wrong. We switched off taking showers (couldn’t do that at night since Toddler A was sleeping in the bathroom), and then it was time for our romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner.
(Narrator: it was not romantic at all).
The dinner… did not go as planned. Remember, Toddler A had no nap, so by 6:30 pm, things were devolving quickly. We made a gametime decision to quickly order him some French fries and chicken fingers, then we ordered the rest of our dinner to the cabin so we could let him yell and run around without interrupting the other happy (quieter) couples. That may have been the best decision we made all weekend. We had our leisurely, and frankly, probably more romantic dinner in our cabin and there was no need to chase a toddler or worry about his volume, speed, or safety. I didn’t mention that the main lodge had about 100 candles burning everywhere, but that was another concern.
We had another surprisingly great night of sleep, complete with more tiptoe bathroom trips, and then we were on our second (and last!) full day. After our second fantastic breakfast, we decided to spend time in the Recreation Center. Last time we went to Chatwal, Chris and I spent a good amount of time at the Rec Center. We played pool and bowled and I did crafts there. We also participated in the nightly bonfire and s’mores. This trip was a little different.
Our main Rec Center activities this time were running, hide and seek, going up and down the stairs, and of course more running. Toddler A also enjoyed Jumbo Connect 4, but I think that was just because it meant we lifted him every time to drop in a chip. After lots of energy was expended, we went back to our cabin for nap time. On day 2, we learned from day 1’s lessons, and we did not even attempt to put A in the crib. I just let him snooze away on the king size bed next to me while I read my Kindle. It was a much more restful day for us all.
Post nap time, we played with the 2 toys I brought, a ball, and bubbles. Since Toddler A is just learning how to kick, he absolutely loved the ball. Also, bubbles were a huge hit since we don’t have an outdoor space at home to use them. Both activities were a success, and before we knew it, it was time to have a light room service lunch, finish Zootopia, shower, and get ready for more Rec Center time before dinner. Our room had a MASSIVE shower that I believe was larger than my first room in Manhattan. It had a built-in bench, which came in handy since I mentioned Toddler A despised the bath. The shower also made for a fantastic “hiding” spot for hide and seek despite the glass door (we have realized the “hide” part of “hide and seek” means something different to a toddler). Night 3 dinner went slightly smoother, but we were basically full by the time the main courses came out, which worked out well because Toddler A was also over it.
Our final morning was fun and uneventful, we packed as best as we could, while Toddler A actively took items out of our bags as soon as we put them in. We had a slow breakfast while they pulled our car around from the valet and loaded our bags and then we headed home and made it back to the city by naptime.
I promised at the end of this blog I would recap why I think this trip went so well, and I will be brief:
- Low expectations. After our last few trips, I just expected chaos and lack of sleep. I was pleasantly surprised!
- No Airports. I know I have said this before, but airports are no place for toddlers. There are too many people, and toddlers do not like being strapped in when they could be running up and down the terminal. Also, the hour+ drive to the airport + security line + waiting at the gate, + sitting on your lap the whole flight, just no. Air travel is hard.
- No other people. I know, I know, it’s nice to see family and friends. And I’m still a semi-extrovert. But when traveling with or to people, you need to take other schedules into account. When the only schedule you need to stick to is your toddler’s, things go far smoother.
- Sleep. I think it goes without saying that all things are more enjoyable when you are rested. Our toddler woke up once each night we were away, and every night it was prior to 11 pm, so we had 11:30-7:30 blessedly quiet and alone. This made for all-around happier campers.
- BYO Food. The place we went had all inclusive food. But you can never depend on a toddler eating new foods, so we brought our own. Having pouches and his favorite cheese on hand was helpful. It also meant I didn’t need to stress about whether he’d eat at mealtimes with us.
- Screens are FINE. We allow screens in the afternoon at home, usually around 4:30-6:30, but we run around while it’s on, play hide and seek, climb things, run away and come back, etc. If we suddenly said, “NO MS. RACHEL” on our trip, we may have had a mutiny on our hands. So instead, we just used that time to shower and get ready for dinner. It was great, and we icky-sticky-bubble-gummed through an hour of the afternoon.
We had fun, we ran around a lot. We relaxed, and we would definitely do it again.
