ninetwelvetwentyfive

my little girl turned three months old last week. and naturally it made me think about how fast the time has gone. in some ways, it’s hard to remember what life was like before she was here; in others, the time has flown past. every day she changes. i took her down to nelson last week for a couple of days so she could meet her little cousins .. we were only away three days but the rockstar said in that time she had grown taller, her hair darker.

it’s kind of de rigueur to include your birth story on your blog these days, i gather. but i’m not going to. not because i think it’s TMI, but it was a very intense experience and summing it up in words still feels hard. but i will tell you about something that happened on the night of L’s second day on this earth.

by this time, i had spent about five days in hospital and i was dying to get home. it was to be our last night in the post-natal ward but my sweet darling L would not settle. at all. she cried and cried inconsolably. something was badly wrong, i feared.

a fabulous midwife came and spoke to me. she asked me to express some milk while she took L for a little walk — ostensibly to calm her but mostly, i suspect, to give me a break. about ten minutes later the midwife returned with a quiet L. “how did you do that?” i asked, in awe. “oh, i just didn’t pay attention,” she said breezily. “she’s pretty annoyed at me now though”. and true enough, i looked at L and she had fixed the midwife with this killer stare. if it’s possible for a two-day-old baby to give someone the evil eye, L was doing it.

but soon she was crying again. a paediatrician came. baby panadol was given. more midwives came. no-one could find anything wrong. by this time it was about four in the morning and L was still crying. and then the first midwife came back. “you know what,” she said, “i think she just wants her mum.”

so we set up my bed so that L could lie beside me rather than in her crib. she lay in the crook of my arm and gradually quieted. curled up like that, we slept.

when i woke, i looked at my little girl’s sleeping face. indeed, it seems like she just did need her mum. and i vowed then and there that whenever she needed me, no matter where or when or how old, i would be there for her.

happy three months, sweet baby girl. we love you xox

1. mother’s day flowers from L. beautiful dragon tulips.

2. me and the baixinha

3. smoked mackerel and potato hash at floridita’s. one of my favourite things to eat.

4. fashionable water at la bella italia, petone.

5. macarons at la cloche, thorndon.

6. water at the chocolate fish cafe, shelly bay.

food, love, our daughter. this is what life has been about lately.

a short trip on good friday.  ice creams and sea air .. and L’s first look at the sea

(hokey pokey. of course. and it was delicious.)

more from our weekend to come. hope yours was delicious, too.  xoxo

sometimes the simplest things are the best.

1.  above, a perfectly simple lunch at nikau cafe in civic square.  grilled halloumi, perfectly ripe tomatoes dressed with a faint sprinkling of oregano and a goodly pinch of salt.   a squeeze of lemon, a slice of grilled bread.  damn, it was good.

2.  via the mighty boon, an important question: is moleskine going too far with their new offerings?  their iOS app certainly sounds pretty rubbish.   i used to be a die-hard moleskine devotee but lately i’ve been craving something new.  again, the key might be keeping it simple.  note to self offers elegantly designed notebooks, made in NZ and with a perfectly small range.  i’m going to order some.

3.  mondegreen is getting a lot of noise for bringing pamela love’s jewellery to NZ, but for me their dresses are the real draw.  considered, clean, lovely materials.  i can’t decide between the bambina in seal grey and the ma belle.   now that the weather is turning decidedly autumnal in wellington (read:  horizontal rain and 120kph winds the other day) sweatshirt dresses are an extremely good move.

4.  a sunny day, a walk along the waterfront with my two loves.   coke zero in a glass bottle as a treat, sitting in the shade and watching the leaves against the sky.

a conversation at my old work in london:

colleague 1:  oh stop being such a hairy old socialist, jessica.

me:  i am *not* a socialist!

colleague 1 (sneering):  that’s true.  you have far too many shoes to be a socialist.

colleague 2:  now that’s unfair.  jessica believes every man, woman and child should have the right to have as many shoes as she does.

me:  now *that’s* socialism.

well hello there, gentle readers.  i sorta took a little break there, didn’t i?

the reason is this:

yes, there has been something of a population explosion here at ninetwelvetwentyfive.  in early february i gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl.

what, you mean i didn’t say anything here?

well, there were reasons, i guess.  i wasn’t sure that i wanted to be so public about the details of my pregnancy.   it also wasn’t a particularly stylish time, let’s say.   you northern hemisphere chicas don’t know how good you have it.   here in NZ, maternity clothes are either extremely expensive and corporate looking (and i was not about to drop several hundred bucks on something i’d only wear for a couple of months) or super-cheap, probably sweatshopped and reeking of VOCs.  there’s not a lot in between, at least, not that i could find.  (oh, and proprietors of maternity boutiques should feel free to e-mail me telling me how wrong i am.  i’d love to compile a list of sources for other suddenly-fashion-challenged mamas.)

so style blogging became a little tricky for a while.  at least for me.  others are doing better:  the wondrous miz fashionwestie is looking utterly fabulous as she progresses through The Miracle Of Womanhood.  i bought a couple of pairs of maternity skinny jeans (irony!) and a really cool wrap dress from womama.  apart from that, i lived in tunic dresses, the aforementioned skinnies and high heels.  not quiiiite blogworthy.

but now miss L is here, i am back in my normal clothes and it is coming into winter.   and all my favourite designers are having really, really strong seasons.   ooh yes.  while i was pregnant, i had quite a bit of time to think about a new personal approach to style.   i’ll talk about that a bit more in an upcoming post.

and then there is this whole new life, this whole new person, to write about.  don’t worry, this isn’t going to become a mama-blog.  not that there is anything wrong with mama-blogs.  but i figure if you want to read about nappies, organic amber teething beads and such, there are lots of women out there writing far better about it than i can.

instead, i may well write about what an awesome person my little girl is and how, despite being unable to talk or even hold her head up unaided, she is my best little buddy.   how the rockstar is an amazing daddy and how she gazes at him with her big blue baby eyes.  and how she already has an impressive wardrobe of shoes (people call them “booties” but we know better, hehe) and likes it when her mama wears breton stripes.  it’s the black and white, apparently.  newborns dig monochrome.   very directional.

all this to come.  for now, i am just easing back into this blogging lark.  so, hi there!  thank you for still reading!  why don’t you leave a comment and tell me what you’ve been up to all this while?

xoxo

it is a beautiful day here in wellington — the sort that makes you feel that spring might one day come.   the sort that makes you forgive the dark and rainy day yesterday.   it’s the kind of day we all need once in a while.   i am not sure what i’m going to do with this lovely day.  but it feels like it might be a day to look forward.  to take a little holiday, even if only for a couple of hours.  and to think about what might come next.

i have so much to tell you that it’s almost hard to know where to start.  but for now, at least a start’s been made.  hi, you guys.  hope you’ve been well.   let’s take this ride together .. what do you say?

the rockstar and i got back from brazil on the morning of the 31st.  thirty hours of travel and we were wiped out .. valiant efforts to stay awake came to nothing and we slept most of the day, waking in time to see the fireworks in auckland live on bbc world news.  i was really not in the mood to get dressed up and go out but the rockstar insisted.  so at about 3am, we ventured out.  courtenay place was carnage, all the good bars were either full or closing.  but i charmed a bouncer into letting us into a place that seemed pretty jumping, and indeed it was .. full of young drunk people dancing to house music.  i decreed dancing was the order of the evening and so we danced a lot, drinking steinlager pure from long-necked bottles and smiling like crazy people.  another bar, giggling at completely wasted people, nipping into burger king where i had a chicken-pineapple burger bought for me — i ate it because i felt bad, but that’s the first time i’ve eaten chain-store burgers in about 15 years and nothing’s changed :-/  but somehow it felt right, as we wandered home watching the sky get lighter and the sun rising .. not for the first time, thanking the universe for the blackout curtains in the bedroom.   it was an unexpectedly excellent night and was the perfect farewell to a year that’s been crazy delirious fun.   i can’t wait to see what 2010 will bring.

i owe you about a dozen posts about brazil and you shall have them.  i got kind of busy there for a while, but i have a lot to tell you.  for now, though, the rockstar and i are heading to napier for a couple of days.  see you soon.

so, erm, yeah.  about that gap in posting.  here’s what i’ve been up to, in pictures:

(this photo was not taken by me but by my super-talented mum.  i love it, so i have posted it here.)

first two brasília, at the sound shell;  last four padre bernardo, which is where the rockstar’s family have a farm.  and where his party was.  more coming, promise.

by the time you read this (isn’t scheduled publishing grand?) i will be on a plane on the way to brazil.  i don’t think i will be taking these shoes, as they are not quite brazil-style, really.  brazil does not encourage dressing like a parisian schoolgirl, in thick black tights and short black skirts;  it is more colourful, more fluid, more relaxed.

things i am looking forward to, in no particular order:

• watermelon smoothies, made with ice and a dash of sweetener
• shopping for melissa shoes, possibly several pairs
• sun-warmed skin, hair going lighter at the ends
• seeing the rockstar in his natural habitat (heh)
• showing my parents around my adopted home (well, one of them) and watching them fall in love with it just like i did
• learning how to cook more brazilian dishes, with a view to a possible project (!!! very exciting)
• seeing my friends!  gorgeous television presenter friend, dashing superstar lecturer friend, hopefully even the bbcbrasil posse at our favourite rio-style bar in são paulo (yeah, i know, contradiction much?)
• seeing my brazilian family!  gosh, i’ve missed them so much
• just being in brazil, the one place on this beautiful blue planet where i feel properly at ease ..
• .. with the rockstar, the one person who could make it even more special.

oh me, oh my.  it’s like the two halves of my life .. the dislocation between which has caused me so much disquiet .. are finally coming together and becoming one.  it’s the strangest and yet the most natural thing.

anyway.  posts will be forthcoming, just as soon as i figure out a good place to post *from*.  there is a lot i want to say about brazilian fashion, about globalisation of style and how brazil seems to firmly resist it .. and, of course, about my beloved melissa shoes.  i’m already dead keen to buy a pair of the vivienne westwood lady dragons .. because, well, come *on*, i resisted when i was in rio in april and i’ve regretted it many times since .. but would i be brave enough to buy the scent?  we shall see .. xoxo