Summary:As the world starts to reopen, tentatively hoping the worst of the pandemic is behind them, Chris and Whitney face a new set of challenges. With busy work schedules and the pressures of normal life looming on the horizon, will the foundation they’ve built through lockdown be strong enough to keep their relationship steady or will they crack under the strain?
Jetlag was something that I always struggled with.
Some people seemed to be able to travel the world and take the time zones in stride while others learned little tricks to help them cope out of frequent necessity, but I seemed to be cursed with a body that was less adaptable than most. I’d tried many things over the years, but nothing had ever worked and I accepted long ago that it was just something that I would be forced to suffer through every time I travelled.
Being able to sit down and talk was exactly what they needed. Hopefully having more out in the open like that will help them in the long run. Also, Grayson’s reaction at the end… priceless.
Summary: As the world starts to reopen, tentatively hoping the worst of the pandemic is behind them, Chris and Whitney face a new set of challenges. With busy work schedules and the pressures of normal life looming on the horizon, will the foundation they’ve built through lockdown be strong enough to keep their relationship steady or will they crack under the strain?
My mind was racing all afternoon and my gratitude for Chris was overwhelming as he was organized enough for both of us and steered me through the day. Jack had called again in the middle of the afternoon to let me know that what he’d said earlier was true - the surgery went well and my dad was expected to make a full recovery - but I was still so stunned by the whole situation that I was struggling to focus.
Summary:As the world starts to reopen, tentatively hoping the worst of the pandemic is behind them, Chris and Whitney face a new set of challenges. With busy work schedules and the pressures of normal life looming on the horizon, will the foundation they’ve built through lockdown be strong enough to keep their relationship steady or will they crack under the strain?
Note: okay, I’m not totally done writing this section of the series yet, but I have most of it done and some of it edited so I can’t resist posting it any longer. Hopefully I can write the last little bit fast enough that there isn’t a delay, but I apologize if I have to space the chapters out a bit more to give myself some extra time. For now, I’ll try to have one up every few days and I think there will be 9 in total. Please let me know what you think!
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Part One
March 2021
Chris was sulking.
He was a grown man and he was sulking.
The fact that he looked exactly like Grayson did when he didn’t get his own way would have been adorable had it not gone on for two days with no end in sight.
Summary:As the world starts to reopen, tentatively hoping the worst of the pandemic is behind them, Chris and Whitney face a new set of challenges. With busy work schedules and the pressures of normal life looming on the horizon, will the foundation they’ve built through lockdown be strong enough to keep their relationship steady or will they crack under the strain?
Note:So, there’s three more parts left after this one in this series! The last part is finished, but the next two I’ve been doing some rewrites in which means there might be a bit of a delay. I’ll do my best to find time to write, but things have been quite busy lately and I don’t want to rush anything. I appreciate your patience if I have to space things out a bit!
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Part Seven
The rest of April and May passed by in the blink of an eye.
Chris was busy filming practically every day, but he was almost always home in time to tuck Grayson in and sometimes he even managed to squeeze in breakfast with him too which definitely helped ease the transition. With our previous arrangement before we were together, Chris and Gray would have been apart for months - we would have stayed in Massachusetts and Chris would have been away for almost the entire three month shoot, only flying in for the occasional weekend if he could squeeze it in - but seeing how much every little moment of time together meant to them now made my heart ache. I thought I’d been protecting Gray by keeping our family separate, but it was becoming so clear that I was only protecting myself.
Chris was quick to reassure me, reminding me that I wasn’t the only one to blame for our situation and pointing out that he and Grayson had a perfectly good relationship regardless of how things had been, but I still couldn’t shake the nagging sense of guilt. Guilt that only got worse when we told Grayson about Chris leaving for a month to film in France.
I feel for them. They are stuck in an impossible situation. It’s easy to have a bad day bleed over and channel frustrations into other areas. Thank goodness they both understood what was going on and worked it out.
Summary:As the world starts to reopen, tentatively hoping the worst of the pandemic is behind them, Chris and Whitney face a new set of challenges. With busy work schedules and the pressures of normal life looming on the horizon, will the foundation they’ve built through lockdown be strong enough to keep their relationship steady or will they crack under the strain?
Note: I have never been to Disneyland. If anything about Disneyland in this part doesn’t make sense then please just feel sorry for me and my lack of first hand knowledge
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Part Six
I was very confident in my decision that it would be best for us to wait until Chris came home from France to start trying for a baby, but I was surprisingly disappointed when my period started a few weeks after our night of unprotected sex. We’d been careful every other time since, but a tiny little part of me was clearly more invested in our new plans than I thought.
There was hardly time to think about it though as Gray’s birthday soon provided a distraction and it was hard to say who was more excited - the birthday boy himself or his dad.
We decided not long after we arrived in California - and once we figured out if it was even a possibility due to the restrictions from the pandemic - that we would take Grayson to Disneyland and Chris was absolutely frantic with glee from the moment we made that decision. He immediately set to work mapping out all the age appropriate rides and figuring out what treats to buy him, which characters he’d want to take pictures with and how he could sneak in a few adult rides without Grayson feeling left out. I’d only been to Disneyland once when I was a teenager so I left it up to him and he had the whole day organized in no time.
Summary:As the world starts to reopen, tentatively hoping the worst of the pandemic is behind them, Chris and Whitney face a new set of challenges. With busy work schedules and the pressures of normal life looming on the horizon, will the foundation they’ve built through lockdown be strong enough to keep their relationship steady or will they crack under the strain?
Note: Hereis a fun little video that ties in with this part! Also, thank you to everyone who has left a comment so far. I so love reading all your thoughts so please let me know if you’re enjoying it!
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Part Five
After that first night, we settled into the house nicely.
Grayson proved, once again, how adaptable he was and was fairly unfazed by the transition. He did, however, struggle a bit more with Chris returning to work. He was needed on set for some last minute pre-production run throughs and costume fittings a few days after we moved into the house and, while we were hoping he would be eased in with a relaxed schedule, he ended up hitting the ground running.
Grayson handled it well for the first couple days, but by the of the week he had reached the limit of his patience.
Summary:As the world starts to reopen, tentatively hoping the worst of the pandemic is behind them, Chris and Whitney face a new set of challenges. With busy work schedules and the pressures of normal life looming on the horizon, will the foundation they’ve built through lockdown be strong enough to keep their relationship steady or will they crack under the strain?
Note: There is a bit of a POV change in the middle of this chapter, I hope it isn’t too confusing or disruptive! Thank you to everyone who has liked and commented so far, I love hearing what you guys think!
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Part Four
“Mom, how many people did you invite to this party?” I asked as Chris returned to the kitchen from his fourth trip unloading groceries from her car. “You do know that we’re still not supposed to have huge gatherings, right?”
“I do know that,” she nodded as she started unpacking the bags. “It won’t be a large gathering. It’s just your dad and I, you, Chris and Gray, Jack, Andrea and Theo and your Uncle Rob and his gang.”
I raised an eyebrow at that claim.
“By ‘his gang’ do you mean ‘everyone he’s ever met’? Because there’s enough food here to feed an army.”
Gray is officially the most adorable little boy on the planet. Seriously. His reaction to seeing his mother affected by the movie is one of the purest things I have ever seen.
