“You’ll find all the baby purees you need in the restaurant”. Puzzled, I looked at my husband. “Oh, no”, we said. “He doesn’t eat purees”.
It’s understandable the receptionist assumed that my son, who is technically still a baby, would eat baby food. But he is not your average 13-month-old. He eats whole plates of pasta, he climbs ladders (mostly with supervision) and he sleeps very little. Why sleep when you could be emptying glass jars out of cupboards or shouting over the fence at the neighbours?
While he may sound like a small-sized hurricane, my son does, thankfully, have a lovely personality. He “talks” to everybody, hands out free hugs and kisses and is very smiley. But he also has a lot of energy. So when we heard about Das Mühlwald – a resort dedicated to giving families quality time together – we were intrigued.
Most travellers go to hotels to relax and switch off. Given Santiago’s loud, tearaway nature, I always fear he may spoil the tranquil atmosphere that most hotels are going for. At Das Mühlwald I didn’t once think about whether he was disturbing anyone else – because everyone was there with kids.
When Santiago decided to experiment with how close to the edge of the table he could balance a plate and it, surprise surprise, smashed onto the floor, the waiting staff quickly cleaned it up without any fuss or scowls. When he splashed around in the pool, nearby children joined in. Das Mühlwald gave us space to be a family in all our loud, exhausted, unpredictable messiness.
