Babystrology

Baby Sign Language - Airplane

2008-04-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

Looking up at an airplane flying overhead is a great time to introduce the baby sign for airplane.

Airplane is signed with your right hand at shoulder level. Use the Y hand shape with your index finger extended and your palm facing outward. Move your hand forward twice as if your hand is a plane flying through the air.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Toilet (Potty)

2008-03-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

There's a distinct expression of concentration on the face of your baby when it's time to go potty. This is the perfect time to introduce the baby sign for toilet.

Toilet or Potty is signed with your right hand at shoulder level. Use the T hand shape with your palm facing outward. Shake your hand side to side with increasing intensity to indicate greater urgency.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Fish

2008-03-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Pointing to your pet fish is a great way to introduce the baby sign for fish. Even if you don't have a pet fish, you can point to a picture of a fish in a story book.

Fish is signed with your right hand at chest level. Use the B hand shape with your palm facing left. Move your hand forward and across your body while bending your wrist left and right as if your hand were a swimming fish.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Dog

2008-03-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

Pointing to your pet dog is a great way to introduce the baby sign for dog. Even if you don't have a pet dog, you can point to a picture of a dog in a story book.

Dog is signed with your right hand at your thigh. Use the B hand shape with your palm facing your body. Tap your thigh several times as if calling a dog.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Cat

2008-03-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

Pointing to your pet cat is a great way to introduce the baby sign for cat. Even if you don't have a pet cat, you can point to a picture of a cat in a story book.

Cat is signed with your right hand at the side of your mouth. Use the F hand shape and move your hand outward several times as if stroking the whiskers of a cat.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Hurt (Pain)

2008-03-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately boo-boos are a part of discovery and growing up. They are also a good time to introduce the baby sign for hurt.

Hurt is signed with both hands at chest level or near the hurt area of your body. Use the 1 hand shape with both hands facing the body. Tap your fingers together indicating the site of the hurt.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Water

2008-03-20T22:51:00.000-07:00

A good time to introduce the baby sign for water is just before offering your baby a drink of water.

Water is signed with your right hand at mouth level. Use the w hand shape with your palm facing left. Tap twice at your chin.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Cold

2008-03-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

A cold winter day, entering a swimming pool, or playing with an ice cube are all good times to introduce the baby sign for cold.

Cold is signed with both hands at chest level. Use the A hand shape with both hands, held apart, palms facing. Shake your hands back and forth as if shivering. You can add a facial expression for greater effect.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Hot

2008-03-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

A good time to introduce the baby sign for hot is when you are cooking, boiling water, or have a hot cup of coffee. From a safe distance, show your baby that steam and stove are hot.

Hot is signed with your right hand at mouth level. Use a clawed 5 hand shape with your palm toward your face. Move your hand away from your mouth and downward quickly as if removing something hot from your mouth. You can show a pained facial expression for greater effect.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Sleep

2008-03-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

Bed time is the perfect opportunity to introduce the baby sign for sleep.

Sleep is signed with your right hand at head level. Use a relaxed 5 hand shape with your palm toward your face. Close your fingers into a flat O shape as if closing your eyes. You can try closing your eyes as your hand closes and add an appropriate facial expressions for greater effect.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Bath

2008-03-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's bath time! The perfect time to introduce the baby sign for bath.

Bath is signed with both hands held at chest level. Use the A hand shape with your both hands, moving your fingers up and down at the same time as if scrubbing your chest during a bath.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Eat (Food)

2008-03-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

Meal time is the perfect opportunity to introduce the baby sign for eat.

Eat is signed with your right hand at mouth level as if bringing food to your mouth. Use the O hand shape with your palm facing you. Tap your fingertips to your mouth once to sign eat; tap twice for the noun food.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - More

2008-03-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

The baby sign for more is another great one to start with because it is easy to perform.

More is signed with both hands held at chest level. Use the flat O hand shape with your both hands, fingertips touching. Tap your fingers together several times as if adding more to a pile.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Baby Sign Language - Milk

2008-03-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

The baby sign for milk is a great one to start with because it is easy to perform and is often one of your baby's favorite foods.

Milk can be signed with one or two hands. Hold your hand(s) at chest level and use the S hand shape with your right hand, palm(s) facing inward. Open and close the S shape several times as if milking a cow.

Discover more baby signs at the Babystrology baby sign language dictionary.

Meet Andy - the new baby sign baby!

2008-03-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

Andy is Babystrology's new baby sign language baby. Andy enjoys short walks between the couch and coffee table, afternoon naps, and enjoys playing with toilet paper rolls and colorful blocks. Andy's favorite foods are milk and bananas for eating and avocado for pure squishy fun. When not sleeping, Andy loves communicating with baby sign language. Maybe Andy can help you learn baby sign language too?

Each day over the next several weeks Andy will be showing off a new baby sign language sign based on American Sign Language (ASL).

8 New Baby Signs Added

2007-11-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Baby Sign Language Dictionary and the Baby Sign Racer game have been updated to include 8 new baby sign language animations.

baby
banana
bed
no
play
telephone
toilet
yes

The Baby Sign Racer game has also been updated with the option to choose your race length (12, 18, or 24 questions) and a bug fix that caused it to slow down over time.

New Baby Signs Added

2007-10-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

The Baby Sign Language Dictionary and the Baby Sign Racer game have been updated to include 9 new baby sign language animations.

bath
bird
book
car
cat
father
finished
fish
mother

More to come soon!

Baby Sign Racer

2007-10-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

Test your baby sign language knowledge with Baby Sign Racer, a free baby sign flash card game.

A baby sign word appears at the top of the game and you have to select the corresponding baby sign animation. Select the correct baby sign as quickly as you can and race against your best time.

Before playing the game you'll probably want to visit the Baby Sign Language Video Dictionary to learn a few baby signs.

Website Unredesign

2007-10-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

Whew! Thank goodness for Google Analytics. It looks like prettyis not always better. After giving the new website redesign about a week it was obvious that the new layout and navigation design were confusing people - traffic dropped by 50%. All the CSS trickery and XHTML optimization were for naught so it's back to the old design with a few minor tweaks.

The new/old design makes more room for content by moving the navigation bar to the top of the page next to the logo. This should hopefully make it easier for people with smaller screens to be able to see everything without scrolling horizontally.

Unnecessary large images have also been removed to speed up page loading.

I can't say that this new/old design is beautiful, but it seems to work better than the version that I thought was beautiful - traffic went right back up to normal levels as soon as the new/old design was posted.

Hope you like the new/old design. Now I'm back to creating widgets...

Website Redesign

2007-10-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

As additional games, tools, toys, and learning activities have been added to the Babystrology website the navigation has somewhat suffered. The Babystrology site redesign hopefully improves navigation confusion by organizing the site into 4 major sections: Learning, Tools, Toys, and Games. A grid layout was also implemented in this update to improve the consistency from page to page. Hopefully it makes things easier to understand. Other minor updates include make the Peepee Teepee Launcher game larger and redesigning the layout of the Baby Name Finder to optimize the available screen real estate.

I look forward to hearing any feedback about the new site design.

Baby Sign Language Animated Video Dictionary

2007-09-06T11:35:00.001-07:00

Teach baby sign language to your baby using the Babystrology free Baby Sign Language Video Dictionary.

The animated videos of baby signs are free for you to watch and learn baby sign language.

The Baby Sign Language Dictionary uses American Sign Language (ASL) - the standard amongst baby sign language books and classes and a growing number of daycare centers.

So far only the 3 basic baby signs (eat, milk, and more) have been added, but the Baby Sign Language Video Dictionary will grow every week - so check in often to learn new baby signs!

3D Baby Fetus

2007-08-24T19:34:00.001-07:00

View a human baby fetus in 3D. This is the first of hopefully many different weekly stages of fetus development throughout pregnancy. This first fetus is of an 8-week old fetus.

The 3D fetus requires the latest Flash player version 9.0.47+ (it's using some pretty new technology).

Baby Name Finder Released

2007-04-29T07:35:00.000-07:00

If you're like most parents, deciding on a name for your new baby can be pretty difficult. Hopefully it will be a little bit easier with this new tool, the Babystrology Baby Name Finder.

The Babystrology Baby Name Finder is a baby name database that is quick and easy to search through for baby names, variations, meanings, origin and gender. Just type in any part of the name you're interested in and you'll instantly get a list of names and variations. For example let's say you're looking for variations on the name Adrian. Just type in "Adr" and you'll get a list of everything from Adriaan to Hadrian.

If you're interested in names from a particular ethnic origin, just select it from the origin drop-down. For example, there are over 90 Celtic names and even a couple of Hawaiian and Sanskrit baby names. There are more baby names being added all the time!

A graph indicating the baby name's popularity and rank over time will give you an idea of how unique a particular name is.

I hope you enjoy the Babystrology Baby Name Finder. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Cheers,
Papapapoose

Baby ticker updated - Multiple Baby Support

2007-03-27T23:31:00.000-07:00

Due to popular demand, multiple baby support has been added to Baby Ticker - The Baby Countdown Pregnancy Ticker. You can now specify how many babies you are carrying! Twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets and more!
Currently only installation through WidgetBox supports easy installation with multiple babies, but I'll have the Baby Ticker Creator updated to support multiple babies in the next couple of days too.

Peepee Teepee Launcer - Flash Baby Game

2007-02-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

The Peepee Teepee Launcher Flash baby game that I've been working on for the last several weeks has finally been launched.

The goal is to get mommy's attention with the peepee teepee as many times as possible before time runs out.

Hint: Aim for mommy's new hairdo for maximum attention-grabbing points.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun making it.

Cheers,
Papapapoose

Baby ticker updated - Now with optional countdown formats

2007-02-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the suggestion by Elissa on Widgetbox, I've updated the baby ticker - pregnancy countdown baby ticker widget to allow people to choose how they want their countdown numbers to be formatted. By clicking on the countdown numbers you can now toggle between the following formats:

Days To Go
Weeks & Days To Go
Days So Far
Weeks & Days So Far

The widget will remember your last selected format so that you don't have to change it every time you visit the page.

Any other suggestions are welcome too.

Top 10 Baby Onesie Designs for January 2007

2007-02-08T10:32:00.000-08:00

I've posted a list of the top 10 best baby onesie designs over on a Squidoo lens. It's a collection of notable baby onesie designs that I've either created or run across the last month.

Baby T-shirt : Baby Love

2007-02-01T07:34:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce the release of a new t-shirt design: Baby Love - Like a full diaper, it cannot be contained.

The Baby Love t-shirt idea was originally inspired by my desire to express my growing feelings for my soon-to-be born baby. It's amazing that you can form such an attachment for a person you've never met. I wanted to visualize this feeling in a fun, yet meaningful way.

To convey the idea of unbound baby love I created an explosion of baby items. If you look closely you'll see teddy bears, baby overalls, baby rattles, diapers, baby pacifiers, baby mobiles, baby cradles, and more. It's quite a complex combination of baby paraphernalia with hundreds of twists and turns.

I hope you enjoy the Baby Love t-shirt. I certainly had fun designing it. You can buy the Baby Love t-shirt or a Baby Love framed print at the Babystrology Gift Store.

New Baby Ticker Widget Released

2007-01-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a baby ticker widget for the last few weeks, and it's finally done. It's a baby countdown widget that counts down how many days are left before your baby's due date. As you get closer to your expected delivery date the baby fetus will change to show the current stage of your baby's development.

I was inspired having recently seen the first ultrasound of my own baby. I was surprised at how much movement and jumping around my tiny baby was doing! I decided that this baby ticker widget had to show it too, so if you watch carefully, you'll see the baby will slowly floating around. There's also an umbilical cord that attaches to the baby!

Create your own baby ticker

You can add your own customized pregnancy ticker and add it to your own web pages, blog posts and signatures too! If you click on the baby ticker widget on this page it will take you to a page that will allow you to customize your own baby ticker, with your own name and due date.

I hope you have as much fun with the baby countdown ticker widget as I had making it!

January 8, 2007 - Baby Heaven Rain Horoscope

2007-01-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Heaven Rain, born to actors David Charvet and Brooke Burke, was born to talk the talk and walk the walk. Her larger than life personality will be both provocative and daring, leading her to the cutting edge in nature, sports, or business. Heaven Rain will be drawn towards where the action and energy are. Born to perform and change the status quo, Heaven Rain will need an outlet for her creativity and sociable personality. Heaven Rain will have many of the same qualities as her mom during the WildOn! days: beauty, sensuality, and drawn towards extreme sports and wild parties.

Other people born on this day:

Ami Dolenz, actress
Butterfly McQueen, actress
David Bowie, musician
Elvis Presley, musician
Gaby Hoffman, actress
Stephen Hawkins, physicist

May 27, 2006 - Baby Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt Horoscope

2006-05-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

Like her parents, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, baby Shiloh will have a natural charm. Baby Shiloh is gifted with many talents and is lucky to have the opportunity to explore them to the fullest - she will excel in many fields. Shiloh will love being around people, where she draws her energy and shines brightest. Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt will likely follow in her parents' footsteps given her natural charisma and magnetism. Once Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is old enough she will be drawn towards becoming a impresario, performer, diplomat, technician, engineer, or problem-solver.

Other people born on this day:

Amelia Bloomer, social reformer
Henry Kissinger, diplomat
Lisa Niemi, actress
Siouxsie Sioux, singer
Vincent Price, actor
Wild Bill Hickok, western entertainer

May 26, 2006 - Baby Kingston James McGregor Rossdale Horoscope

2006-05-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

Charismatic, creative, talented and determined to succeed Baby Kingston is well-equipped for life on the edge. Kingston Rossdale will often find simple societal laws frivolous, yet will fiercely uphold certain traditionally conservative values. Being a champion of the underdog will perhaps lead Kingtson to a career as a defense attorney for the less-fortunate, a teacher, an activist, or something similar.
Intense exercise and competitive sports such as tennis, wrestling, running or bicycling are well suited to Kington's personality.
A Gemini, Kingston is likely to flash between hot and cold behavior which will test his relationships, but he has a warm heart and has a very private and quiet center to his personality.

Other people born on this day:

Sally Ride, astronaut
Hank Williams, singer
John Wayne, actor
Peggy Lee, singer
Lenny Kravitz, singer
Stevie Nicks, singer

September 14, 2005 - Baby Sean Preston Federline Horoscope

2005-09-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

Sean Preston Federline, born to performers Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, will have a kind heart and will excel in many areas. People will appreciate Sean's strengths, talents, distinctive style and wisdom which he can use to change the world, although he will sometimes find it difficult to appreciate his own worth. A "do it by the book" kinda guy, Sean will be honest and dependable.

Other people born on this day:

Clayton Moore, actor
Faith Ford, actor
Joey Heatherton, dancer
Nicol Williamson, actor
Kate Millett, feminist
Zoe Caldwell, actor