The Hamptons

We had such a fun weekend with just the three of us for our first time in the Hamptons. As resident New Yorkers, we thought we should head out east to see what all of the hype was about. Even with dreary weather, the cute downtowns, waterfront mansions, and well manicured landscapes did not disappoint!

We headed out of the city at around 11 am on Friday, we wanted to try to avoid the dreaded weekend exodus traffic that we had been warned about. Wyatt has really upped his car-travel game in the last few months- when he was a newborn he would literally SCREAM every time we went in the car, and remain upset for most of the ride. We’re not sure if he wasn’t wild about being strapped in the carseat, or just the fact that living in the city we rarely drove in a car so he wasn’t used to it, or maybe he just has early on-set road rage. But now, he’s a little more willing to go with the flow, is a better napper, and I’ve learned a few strategies that help him more happily get through the ride. I keep lots of pacis on hand because he likes to toss them, I travel with water and formula packets (literally genius) to make bottles because I stopped traveling with pumped breast milk (more on that here), and of course pack other snacks, I try to time up at least part of the ride with his naps, and when all hope is lost, we bust out the emergency iPad that is stocked with downloaded (I learned my lesson with attempting to stream in the backwoods of Vermont where there is NO service) episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (he is obsessed…M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E and now it is stuck in your head too).

Unfortunately, none of those strategies were successful at the start of our journey. I was in a special kind of hell for the first 30 minutes of the ride – Wyatt was screaming, Tim was on a work call, and I was driving, while trying to listen to the gps while dealing with the crazy NYC drivers, (and get around detours because of the constant construction in NYC) and reaching around futilely at each stop light in attempts to quiet Wyatt so Tim could do his job. Relaxing is not how I would describe the journey to the Hamptons, but once we arrived it was a different story.

We stayed just outside Montauk on a beachfront hotel in Amagansett. The first day we made stops at Tate’s Bake Shop in Southampton, Montauk Brewing Company– where we met up with some friends for the city, and Navy Beach for a delicious whole-fish dinner. We woke up the next morning and hopped over to Golberg’s for some bagels and coffee, walked down to the beach, and then headed up to the Montauk Point Lighthouse to do some exploring! After a lobster roll lunch at Gosman’s Dock we stopped by The Surf Lodge for a glass of rosé on the beach. Wyatt was pretty exhausted so we headed back to the hotel for a family nap. The Lobster Roll was for dinner where I got my second lobster roll of the day! (No shame in my roll game!) When we vacation we don’t necessarily keep Wyatt on a schedule, but after we ate it was time to call it a night. The next morning we headed to the beach for a quick walk and toss of the football, then packed up and made a stop at Levain for the most delicious cookies (if you live in NYC, go, now!) before heading out of town on the early side to beat the traffic!

The traffic apparently is just constant on Sundays no matter what time you leave, but luckily we employed some of our car-travel strategies (!) and timed up the start of our journey with Wyatt’s first nap, then kept him happy with a bottle once he woke up. When Tim and I are both in the car, we usually try to have one of us sit in back with Wyatt to be able to entertain him, he seems to be happier with company- or at least someone feeding him one Cheerio at a time like a Greek God being fed grapes, to avoid making a mess of the borrowed car. He really prefers the lap of luxury, the prince would probably just be happiest if we flew right into Montauk…next time, HA!