Reporting for MB2 News Channel

Good evening, I'm Breanna Mecham. Thanks for joining me for this evening's Baby News in Five Minutes or Less.

Our top story of the night deals with pint-sized consumers making a big-time fuss.

The baby-network is buzzing as 38 week-old fetuses everywhere are look to upgrade to a larger, more accommodating womb-model with more leg room. Womb experts (aka: women) fired back at the complaints, stating that "wombs are perfect for the fetal lifestyle, when the womb gets too 'small' it is time for the consumer to make a change, not the other way around."

In celebrity news:

 The paparazzi a were thwarted yet again, in a fourth attempt to catch a glimpse of Mecham Baby #2's profile. Months of effort have resulted in no facial pictures, only some rather embarrassing, but very telling, "nether region" photos. Our favorite celebrity seems to be shy, but not modest.  The public will have to wait to see the illusive Mecham Baby #2 until her premiere. 

Let's move on to the traffic report.

It looks like baby traffic is going to stay at a standstill.  According to the last ultrasound, the cervix was looking exactly the way it always has for the past nine months.  As soon as there is dilating and effacement, we can expect some headway.  MB2 News will be sure to let you know when things start progressing.

In sports:

The current heavyweight champion may soon be ripped of their title. It has been confirmed that Mecham Baby #2 is already weighing in at over seven pounds and is still growing! 

Tomorrow night's story:

Waddling; it's not just for ducks anymore.

I'm Breanna Mecham, reporting for Mecham Baby #2 News.  Thank you, and goodnight.

General Information: Brinkley

Once again, I am pretending you care.

1. Age -  Five months.

2. Origin of name - "Brinkley is my dog.  He loves the streets of New York as much as I do.  Although he likes to eat bits of pizza and begal off the sidewalk and I prefer to buy them.  Brinkley is a great catcher who was offered a tryout on the Mets farm team but he chose to stay with me so he could spend 18 hours a day sleeping on a large green pillow the size of an inner tube." - Joe Fox

I love You've Got Mail.  It's my favorite movie of all time.  I decided that I would name Brinkley (a Goldendoodle - Golden Retriever mixed with Standard Poodle) after the dog from the movie.  I realize that the Brinkley in You've Got Mail was male and full-blood Golden Retriever, but I work with what I've got. 

I bought Brinkley "a large, green pillow the size of an inner tube."

3. Moving around the house - We marked the doors in and out of the house with mats.  (Her food and water is also marked with a mat to let her know when she is close to it; the puppy likes to accidentally step in her bowls.) Brinkley knows she is close to an exit because there is a texture change.  We also put bells on the sliding glass door - we ring the bells when we open and close the door and hopefully, eventually, Brinkley will learn to bump the bells to let us know she needs to go out.

Since she is blind, when Brinkley first enters a room, she bonks her head on a lot of things.  She finds the wall, stays right up against it and walks the perimeter of the room several times until she gets the general layout of the room.  Then she branches out and learns the rest of the room.  She bumps into things quite often, but not hard enough to hurt her. 

If she gets lost/stuck somewhere - meaning she can't figure out the way out of the room (the master bedroom/bathroom is the worst) - she barks a couple of times until I find her and guide her out.  We are trying not to pick her up when she needs rescuing because we want her to learn to rescue herself.

She loves the backyard because it is completely open and she can run around like crazy without bumping into anything.  The only problem with being in the backyard is that she gets pokey, ouchie, stickers stuck in her fur.  These stickers don't like to come out. In an effort to stop things getting stuck in her fur, we had her groomed so her fur isn't quite so long, but I think that we are going to have to go shorter.

4. Training -We are trying to teach her to better follow the sound of a voice.  Sometimes I think she is partly deaf because it takes her a lot of wandering before she finds us.  We say her name a couple of times and pat our leg in a steady pattern and when she is pointing toward us we say, "Straight, straight: until she walks to us.  Who knows, maybe with all our direction giving, (Ex. Turn around.  Wall. Chair. etc.) she'll be a dog that knows her left from her right.

I have also started taking her to dog training classes.  I will be bragging about how smart she is and all she has learned as soon as we complete the six week course. (Which might take a while, considering I am supposed to be having a baby right in the middle of it.)

Finding Brinkley

I'm pretending you care.

The story of how the Mecham's acquired their newest family member, Brinkley:

It may seem silly, but I'd been praying to find the perfect dog ever since Max died. I love having an pet in the house. (Luke says animals are my hobby.) I've wanted a Labradoodle or a Goldendoodle for a couple of years now. Labs, Golden Retrievers and Poodles are all excellent family dogs. Mix the size (HOORAY for big dogs!) excellent personality of a Lab or a Golden with the non-shedding of Poodle and you get a dog perfect for the Mecham household!

Back in April I was Googling Goldendoodle breeders in California and after some digging, I came across Jennifer's Canines. They had a special needs puppy ready for adoption. This particular puppy's issue was blindness. Brinkley's eyes are fine, but as the message goes to her brain, something gets lost along the way and the message never connects; she never really "sees" things. We think that she can see some shadows because, at times, she's really good at avoiding obstacles.

Anyway, I contacted the breeder (on the 13th) and heard back almost right away. I asked for Brinkley's medical records and talked to my veterinarian about them. I was assured that, though she was blind, I shouldn't be concerned enough to not adopt her.

We drove 4 hours, one way, and picked up Brinkley on the 15th. I really believe that finding Brinkley when I did was an answer to a prayer. Jennifer's Canines placed the ad on either the 12th or the 13th and I am so grateful that I found it when I did. Also, because of her disability, Brinkley was given to us. I was able to adopt my dream dog and it didn't cost us an arm and a leg.

I'm in love with her.  She's wonderful.

Don't Flush!

Aslynn asked me to leave her alone while she went potty. 

I left her alone for too long, obviously.   She "wiped" out all that was left of the toilet paper roll. 

 

 

Don't ask me how I got all of that out of the toilet.  I'm very resourceful, but still, it was disgusting.

Mother-Daughter Bonding

Have you heard about the show called, One Born Every Minute?  It's quality entertainment. 

Since we don't have cable, Aslynn and I would watch it online.  No new episodes have been aired in a very long time; Z and I don't know what to do with ourselves.

On Wednesdays, Aslynn would wake up and ask, "Watch the baby show?"  We would get our breakfast and curl up together in front of the computer and watch the babies be born.

Z really got into the show and would help the ladies in labor by screaming at them, "PUSH!  PUSH! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! PUSH!" Seriously, I didn't teach her that.  She started doing it all on her own. 

I love her, but she won't be there when her sister is born. 

Okay, People

I'm pregnant. Very pregnant. But please, I'm begging you, don't point out the fact that I am very pregnant.

Women who aren't pregnant don't like to hear about their weight, so WHY IN THE WORLD do you think that a pregnant woman would like hearing about how "huge" she is or how her "body can't take much more" or how she looks like she was "supposed to pop yesterday"?!

I know I'm larger than I was 3 months ago or even a month ago; I have the stretch marks to prove it. I'm growing a baby - a rather large one according to the doctor. What do you expect? That big baby's got to grow somewhere!  

I've been getting larger by the day for the past ALMOST 9 months; I don't need you to remind me. When you point out my pregnant body, in a negative way, it hurts my feelings, makes me cranky and I start thinking about launching spitballs into your hair.

I'm planning on this baby being out of me in no more than four weeks.  I promise, you will know when it happens.  Hint: my belly will be flatter and I will be carrying around a newborn.

 
I know you probably don't realize that you are being mean. Who knows, maybe I'm being uber sensitive. But let's just agree that from now on, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.  

Thank you.  

Mean rant over.  We're even now.   

Disclaimer: I am so grateful that Luke and I have been blessed with this new baby! I am so grateful for a body that can grow a baby! I am so excited to meet this new daughter of ours! I am also SO ready to be done being pregnant so I can meet her!

"So" count in that paragraph alone: 5...and I'm not going to bother trying to rewrite it.

If I Sold Our Daughter to the Zoo...

...she would be totally okay with that.

We went on an adventure to the Living Desert in Palm Springs.

We fed the giraffes.

 

We visited the hummingbirds and butterflies.

The highlight of the day was the camel ride.

 *Waiting to ride the camel.*

Quote #1 of the trip - heard at the Zoo: "SHUT the front door!!! They have camel rides?!"  For the rest of the Williamson's stay, "Shut the front door" was said about 1,234,342,157 times, and every single time Melina and I would laugh and laugh and laugh. 

In case you were wondering, Quote #2 was said because we figured out we had been playing one part the game Bohnanza completely wrong: "That changes the whole dynamic of the game."  This quote may have been badly abused too.  In my opinion, the zoo quote was much funnier.

A Wonderful Word

I love the word Lullaby. 

I like the way it sounds when I say it.  It's like a whisper, very breathy. 

I like the feelings that come when I think about the word lullaby, what it means and the end results of when someone puts the word lullaby into action.

Sweet, soft singing to babies.  Watching their eyes close gently.  The beautiful, love-filled words of each chorus.

Doesn't it make you all warm and fuzzy inside?  Well, it makes me feel that way!

(Alright, I admit, the pregnancy hormones may be on serious overdrive and all I can think about is babies and all they entail.  Cut me some slack!)

Gubler Orchids

Gubler Orchids grows orchids for Home Depot, Lowes and several grocery stores.  Their greenhouses aren't too far from where we live and visitors are welcome to tour the facility.

The last time Luke and I were at Gubler Orchids was the day he proposed to me.  We bought an orchid that day, but it didn't last through all of our moves to different apartments.  (We bought the orchid with the thought that it would be our "Love Fern"...please watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days if you don't understand this reference. I promise you will laugh.)

We took the Williamsons to tour the greenhouses.  BEAUTIFUL!

Here are some pictures of the orchids we saw.

 *Giant bloom.*

*Vanilla beans actually come from an orchid plant.  This is what it looks like.* 

 *Another GIANT orchid.*

*Baby Venus Flytraps.*

I was hoping to buy a chocolate scented orchid, but they had just sold the last one.  Instead I bought a beautiful white one; I hope I don't kill this one too.

Easter

Decorating eggs can be very fun...and very colorful. 

All the pictures are blurry because the girls couldn't be bothered to hold still long enough to get a good picture.

*The unknown man in the video is David.  He's from the singles branch - they were decorating eggs too. Please note: Aslynn is more interested in playing with the dye than dipping eggs.*

The little girls had to stay in the bath for an hour before the dye came off. 

The Easter Bunny came to our house!  Sadly, the video is too big and it won't load; you won't get to see the girls find their baskets and hunt for eggs.  Sorry!