(Source: Grant Whitty on Unsplash)

When I was just a month old, I was baptized into the Catholic church. I continued to receive the Holy Sacraments until high school, when I gave confirmation of my faith at 16 years old.

Afterwards? Well, I started dating an atheiest. Of course, I didn't (and still don't) care about his beliefs or lack thereof because I love him for who he is. And so naturally, now I'm married to him.

Living apart from my Sunday Mass-going family after high school saw the decline in my trips to church. If I was visiting my parents, I still went out of respect for their wishes, but I groaned because nobody should be up that early on the weekend :)

And since I wasn't constantly being talked to about how I should fear God and put Him above all else, I began to doubt my faith. The Catholic Church is infamous for its pro-life stance, and I strongly believe in bodily autonomy. I could go on and on, but just know that there are many disagreements between the church and I.

But no matter how long my back is turned, something always seems to pull me back. And after I suffered the loss of my pregnancy in 2016, I learned that it's because someone is watching over me.

Back in January 2016, I had a dream.

For your TL;DR needs, have a depiction of the overall sentiment of this post.

Source: Unsplash

Let me just start by saying that this isn't me asking for advice.

Let me tack on another disclaimer to the above disclaimer that this isn't me being rude. I hear your well wishes, your prayers, your assertions that God's will be done. And I'm not upset when I hear them; they are very appreciated.

Please understand this from my point of view.

Some days, I'm okay and happy. Even though I miss my family, my home, like crazy each and every day, we're doing good. Seriously—we both have good jobs, we have food in our pantry, a roof over our heads, a warm bed to sleep in, two pups to cuddle, etc, etc.

Some days, most days, I ache.

It seems so easy for everyone else. Yet the countless forums and subreddits I stalk tell me otherwise. I should count my lucky stars I don't have a need for hormone therapy or IUI or IVF treatments. Yet.

And then I always find myself stuck in the middle, no matter what.

No surprise/accident baby. ("At least you get to plan ahead.")

No decade-long struggle. ("It could be worse.")

I know it could be worse because the worst has already happened. I've always had the sneaking suspicion that bringing a child into the world was not going to be easy. And it makes me sad-laugh because I'm constantly telling my husband that his negativity exhausts me.

"You know it really drains me sometimes hearing you complain so much about every little thing," I'll tell him. And yet this is how I've gotten about this whole "trying" thing.

This is what loss has done to me. I can't be hopeful. I can't be calm. I can't relax. I can't "just stop trying", that's the exact opposite of how this works.

I'm hungry to once again feel the joy that stupid little blue line brought me. I'm longing to love our little someone with everything I am. I know it's selfish of me to want and want and want and want and want and want when so many people have less. But I'm still allowed to be sad.

"If you have sex, you'll get pregnant," that's what we're told. Who knew making a baby would be this hard?

Will I ever see you again?

Anyway, I just needed to get this off my chest. It gets lonely all the way over here, especially with matters such as this.

Keep reading below for a step-by-step guide on how I made each piece, complete with pictures r/restofthef-ingowl would be proud of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe Moana is an overrated costume choice by now, but look at my goddaughter Sophia in the eyes and TELL HER she doesn't make a perfect Moana!


The hair, the brownness, the hair, the fearlessness, the HAIR.. She's perfect!


And because her mommy gave her life, I convinced her to go dressed as Te Fiti, goddess with the power to create life itself<3


When we talked about what she should wear, I decided that any old flower crown just wouldn't cut it for a Halloween party at the most magical place on earth. So I made her Te Fiti-themed ears just for the occasion!


So when I surprised Amber with the ears on FaceTime, Sophia's response was (and I quote):

"Whaaaat aboooout myyyyyyyyyyyyyy crooowwwnnn????????"

And well that just broke my heart so I made a special Moana-style flower crown just for her!

As for me, I really wanted to go as Tamatoa for my love of his song "Shiny" and also Jemaine Clement in general. I just didn't want to make it too complicated, especially considering we'd be running around a theme park with a 3-year-old.

So I ordered this shirt from Etsy, glued his face onto a baseball cap (inspired by this pin), and crafted a glitzy "shell"*** that the crab himself would surely add to his dazzling dungeon.


Since this post is already gearing up to be monstrous enough for Lalotai, I'll post a video of our night at MNSSHP separately. This was Sophia's first time EVER at Disney World, so I wanted to make sure I captured the day as perfectly as I'd captured her mommy's first visit!

I really struggled to find an easy guide to make each of these things online, so I wanted to share how I personally made them, because I doubt Moana is going to be unpopular anytime soon :)

Moana's flower crown

I'll start with the easiest one.

I eyeballed this picture when I perused Google for a kid version of Moana's lovely flower crown. Honestly, Sophia wasn't a huge fan of wearing this while we were at the park. Don't get me wrong—it held up completely fine and she adored it, she just got annoyed with it being on her head, so this would probably work better for older kids.

Supplies:

• green ribbon
• green felt
• pink felt
• hot pink pom poms
• scissors
• your choice of adhesive (I used hot glue)

I wasn't confident with my freehand leaf and flower-drawing skills, and I wanted them to be as uniform as possible, so I traced the shapes onto paper. Then I cut those shapes out and traced the outline onto the felt using a marker. Don't worry about cutting the marker outline completely off-- you can just glue that side facing down!


I'm sure there was a more efficient way to do this, but once I traced the shape onto the felt, I folded the felt sheet in half to cut two shapes out at once. Use whatever method you want to cut out the green leaves and the pink flowers.

I ended up using 30 leaves and eight flowers. Depending on the size of whoever's head this is going on, you may need less or more.

Measure the circumference of said person's noggin and add 10 inches to that length. This is so that there's enough extra ribbon left to tie into a knot. For example, Sophia's head measured 20.5 inches so I rounded up and cut 31 inches of ribbon.

Now it's time to glue the shapes onto the ribbon. Put a dot of your favorite glue on the bottom of a leaf shape, measure the ribbon's halfway point, and press the leaf onto the dead center of the ribbon.


The order I glued the leaves was skinny side up, then the next one on top of it, slightly overlapping with the skinny side down. You can choose how far apart you want them, but this is how I did it. (Looking at pictures probably makes more sense than me describing it...)


I layered two flower shapes on top of each other to create some dimension, leaving four flowers visible on the finished headband. Once those were glued together, I glued them as evenly spaced as I could on top of the finished leaves.


Lastly, glue a hot pink pom pom onto the center of each flower. I wish I would have gotten larger pom poms, but the pack these came in was only 99 cents at Michaels, and I didn't want to buy more than I needed for larger pom poms... Besides, I think they look pretty cute!

Tamatoa's shiny shell

I almost gave up on this project to order a gold sequin backpack online (which would have been perfect), but I just couldn't find an affordable one.  This video inspired me that the project was simple enough not to abandon.

Supplies:

• cardboard
• twine
• foil
• gold metallic finish spray paint
• decorative sea shells
• old jewelry, beads, etc.
• random shiny things
• glitter spray
• adhesive of your choice (use something stronger than hot glue!)

Te Fiti-inspired ears

On July 21, we became a little family of four!

In case we're not friends on Facebook, this little lady is Molly Louise. We adopted her from the Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando.

It's funny because I initially began volunteering there in an attempt to quell my puppy fever. I figured that playing with dogs without the responsibility of owning them would satisfy my need to add another dog to our family.

But alas, this only fanned the flame.

You see, here in Orange County, there's PAGO and right across the street is Orange County Animal Services. PAGO is privately-owned and only takes owner surrenders, whereas OCAS has to take any and all animals since they're a government facility.

So it became a habit of mine to browse both shelters' adoptable pets online on a daily basis. There were so many potential doggies we both wanted to adopt, but the timing was always off.

At one point, we decided that it would be best if we just became foster parents for a while. That way, we'd still be helping an animal even though we wouldn't get to keep it. We were actually planning on attending a puppy foster orientation, but the apartment tour we were on ran longer than we expected. So I asked Anthony if he wanted to go to the shelters anyway to check out the dogs and he shrugged, sure.

We ended up meeting with two dogs at PAGO that we had seen online. I really wanted to meet with a dog named Ariel because she was right at the top of the alphabetical list every time I opened the adoptable dogs page for the past month. I had grown fond of that face and wanted to see how she was in person. She was indeed just as cute, but the most precious part came when we got to meet her.

I never wanted to make a decision about adopting a dog without my husband. I wanted to fall in love with the dog together and decide together. So when Ariel excitedly bounded into the room, she instantly jumped into Anthony's arms and snuggled. She was so sweet and cute and she completely stole our hearts.

We were told that she was heartworm positive, but PAGO sponsors the treatment and she would have to be on strict rest until treatment is over. This is absolutely no problem considering we're pretty sedentary people. Heck, Minnie plops all day long.

So we tried to set up a meet-and-greet between Ariel and Minnie, but we were told they don't do them on the weekends, so we said we were just going to go home and ruminate.

The next morning, the very first thing Anthony said upon waking up was that he was thinking about Ariel. I was like, "Okay that's it, we're going to get her." And that's exactly what we did.

We burst through the door and announced that we were there to adopt Ariel. And so they scheduled her heartworm treatment for the next few months, administered some last-minute vaccines, and then she was ours.

Every day for the next two weeks, I became severely overwhelmed.

I was convinced that this was the worst decision we ever made. We should have taken more time to think about it. We don't have time to take care of two dogs. We don't have room in our apartment for two dogs. We can't afford more vet bills. When we move to a new apartment or house, we can't apply to places with breed restrictions, seriously limiting our options.

The worries kept piling on and on, and I cried nearly every day. I felt that someone else could take better care of her. I truly felt that we were extremely rash in our decision and I desperately wanted to give her back to PAGO. But my poor husband, always dealing with my dramatic tendencies, refused.

He made me feel incredibly guilty, reminding me that I begged him to adopt her, and asking me if I really just wanted to throw her away. Of course I didn't, I said. But I really thought that we just weren't the right parents for her.

I only calmed down when I realized that we could have her trained. Sure, it's going to take time and money, but the results will be worth it.

And then she snapped at someone and their dog.

It didn't worry me at first because it was really the other dog's fault. The dog saw Molly in the distance and really wanted to come meet her, so the owner indulged and walked toward us. As the two approached each other, the dog jolted to the side at the last second and Molly snarled and gave such an ugly bark. I was mortified, convinced she would report my dog's aggressive behavior to management.

Then she growled and snarled at her first vet appointment. The attendant checking us in stuck her hand out to let Molly sniff, and she did, but she decided that she didn't like her and began to growl. And she barked in the same nasty way she barked at the dog who teased her. When we were moved to the exam room, the vet and an attendant entered the room, already aware of the nervousness. Molly was very afraid and didn't like these two new strangers, so she snarled and barked again. This time, she snapped in our direction when she sensed Anthony's hand near her, but once she realized it was him, she licked his hand. We muzzled her for the exam, which she did just fine with. She let them touch her, but she looked seriously downtrodden with her head pressed down to the ground like she'd just been shamed.

Those feelings rushed over me again. She's aggressive. What are we going to do if she bites someone? What if she reacts that way when she meets our family? That is completely unacceptable. Especially because my parents despise pit bulls, which is probably part of her genetic makeup.

But what I really needed to do was take time to think through the situation. Eventually I realized that every problem I was having could be solved in some way.

So I sought out local dog trainers and we found Dog Training by Vanessa, who was offering a free session for adopted shelter dogs. What convinced us that this was the right path was that Molly never once growled at her, and was practically in her lap within five minutes of interacting with her. Plus, Vanessa explained to us that Molly isn't aggressive-- she's scared. Basically, Molly knows that growling at something she doesn't like makes it go away, so she continues to do it. So Vanessa is teaching us to teach her that it's not necessary to be scared and to change the way she sees strange things.

So now every Saturday afternoon, Molly has a lesson with Vanessa, and we have homework of sorts to work on with her during the week. Now I am so confident that we are doing the right thing. After the first lesson, I truly started thinking of Molly as my dog.

Continuing the trend of problem-solving, we have a few short- and long-term goals, with the most important being to move to a larger apartment or, ideally, a house with an enclosed yard for Molly to run around in (once her treatment's over). We feel that having extra space would make everything so much better. We wouldn't feel so cramped and stuck, and everyone has room to breathe. And we can finally focus on being a happy little family of four :)

Of course, I'm anticipating new challenges with change. But I'm trying really hard to take each challenge day-by-day. And I have to remind myself that we're doing the best we can to give Molly a better life.