Little Steps

In December of 2008 there was a revolution in SL. You see, prim babies back then were basically made of plywood. Yes, they made babies that weren’t much more than a box with a sphere on top, and you were supposed to pretend that it looked cute, cuddly, and worthy of you giving it all the childhood traumas that would make it grow up to be the next great badly adjusted adult with a desperate need for years of therapy to undo your parenting.

Then came Efimero Aker. He created these new babies, ones that went from being just a bit more interesting than a potato, to a full fledged virtual baby. A baby that no longer looked like something you buy at a furniture store, but a baby that looked like the child of Steven Tyler and Amy Winehouse.

Efimero made a baby that is quite unique. He implemented ideas to make the baby as real as possible. These babies can get sick, they need vaccinations, The attention you give them will affect their growth (kinda sounds pretty much like torture, doesn’t it?), and mothers all over the grid went wild about these babies.

Efimero branched out into an entire collection of baby items. Furniture, toys, accessories, making Tatu a kind of one stop shop for anyone wanting to pretend they’re a parent.

The selling of babies on the internet is nothing new. The selling of virtual babies, well that’s a lot newer, but now it’s looking better than it has before. The detail in the pixel babies is quite intricate, the animations pretty realistic. So far, the only limitations are the ones imposed on us by SL itself, and by the fact that no matter how bad you want it for your child, they will not grow up to become a real person.

For the future Efimero has a few ideas on the drawing board. Mesh clothing for example, and he’s even looking into the possibility of babies that change their appearance as they get older. Cause serial murderers that look like babies… well that’s soooo Chucky, don’t you think?

Interested? Stop by Little Steps and have a talk with Dr. Nicky about tatu babies, and see if this is the way to go for you!

The Opium Fashion Agency is holding a Fashion show later on today! Ok, actually, it’s in three hours, so it’s a good thing that I’m posting this now, isn’t it?

Come see this sneak peak of Vero Modero’s high fashion maternity line!

What does this mean for you? Well, first of all, it means that you can come see a whole bunch of pretty clothes. That’s always a plus. And you will probably have the opportunity to buy the fashions that you see as well. From what I’m told, there will be trousers, tops, dresses, jackets and jeans, for all phases of your maternity.

You can also come to meet other mothers and mothers-to-be. It’s a great way to meet people that also are thinking about bringing an addition into their family!

You can also just come to stand there, point at the pregnant models and laugh really loudly as they waddle down the runway like ducks.

It’s completely up to you! Click the image for the surl of the show, and if you’re inspired after seeing the pregnant ducks, stop by Little Steps and have a talk with Dr. Nicole! Tell her I sent you!

And this party is lasting an entire month!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the Zooby Affiliate Fall Festival with a whole bunch of activities that actually sound really really fun. Roasting marshmallows, shopping, grabbing a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, carnival rides, hay mazes and a whole lot of other stuff that you have to see to believe!

Now, why should you come? Well, other than the fact that it’s a whole lot of fun, Zooby makes babies. Yes, it’s true – I found that out today. I was trying to figure out why Little Steps was sponsoring an animal festival, but figured that maybe the clinic gets all different kinds of parents.

But no – Zooby makes babies. In effect, it’s very possible they were the ones who made (or will make) your baby. So… Zooby is your baby daddy.

Don’t worry. I won’t tell your husband.

Or you might want to tell him yourself? Maybe… at the Festival?

Grab your entire family – and stop by for a great time – I hope to see you there!

When Nicky told me that I was to blog about poses for pregnant women, I have to admit I got a little nervous.

I didn’t get nervous because I don’t like pregnant women, and I didn’t get nervous because I don’t like poses. Because, both of those things, well I think they’re pretty ok in my book.

But I do have to admit, that I wasn’t sure what kind of posing we were talking about, and I really… well I really don’t feel like seeing pics of women strapped down on a table with their feet in the air as their lady bits explode with new life. I mean seriously, they literally explode.

Boom! Splat! Squish!

Imagine my relief though, when I got the pics in my email, and found out, that not only are these poses not squishy at all, but they’re actually really, really pretty!

Sudarwen Mcmillan, from Argentina, is a creator of static poseballs, absolutely perfect for all kinds of family photography. Yes, she makes poses for pregnancy, but for Sudarwen, it’s all about the family. Touching poses of family members young and old listening to the baby, endearing poses of mother and father bonding around the budding new life, all kinds of stuff like that.

Enough about them though – let’s see the pretty pictures, and just enjoy! Click on the thumbnails to see the full version, or just stop by Little Steps to talk to Dr. Nicole, who can help you get whatever your heart desires!

Wait, no, I meant memories, not mammaries. Simple mistake to make, I suppose, what with all the talk about bigger boobs and breastfeeding in the last couple posts that were made.

No, this time it’s about memories. Remembering your pregnancy, remembering how beautiful and radiant you were during the time you baby was kicking you in your spleen on a regular basis.

It’s about remembering how huge you were, and that even your butt got bigger. It’s about remembering how thankful you were that your clothes were copy / mod, so you could resize the prim skirt.

It’s about that amazing day, and the party that followed, when Linden Labs finally released viewer 3, and you were more than able to enlarge your beautiful sculpted belt to larger than 10 metres in diameter.

Little Steps has enlisted the cooperation of one of Second Life’s best photographers, Nick Bradenwathever (no, I don’t know how to pronounce his name either, but I suppose that if you sneeze and cough at the same time, then you get something that sounds pretty close).

Nick is an amazing photographer, with credentials both within Second Life, where he has been a professional photographer for almost 4 years, and outside of Second Life (they call that “real life”, or at least I’ve heard people talk about that, whatever that means), where Nick holds some impressive credentials in the Creative Arts field.

In any case, it means he makes pretty pictures.

Come down to Little Steps, talk to Dr. Nicole about what photo services Nick can arrange for you. Yes, you could go to Nick directly, but from what I understand you get special pricing from being a patient of the Little Steps Maternity Clinic.

Yes, even in Second Life, it’s all about who you know! And you know Dr. Nicole, so you’re very well connected!

Ok, this is going to be a strange post, because there’s simply way too much info to give you all today. Let me try though, ok?

Today it’s all about furniture. Little Steps offers you a huge selection of furniture that you’re going to need, once you get fat and fatter and then your naughty parts explode and you spit out this wriggling bunch of pixels that poop and eat and cry.

You’re going to need furniture so you can sit and rock on a chair with your baby. You’re going to need furniture so that you can feed your baby, because it needs new ammunition if it’s going to throw up all over you again. You’re going to need furniture so you can swing your baby around in the air and make it really, really sick. You’re going to need furniture so that it will sleep behind bars, so that it can’t crawl out and bother you when you’re trying to have a life.

There’s oodles of amazing furniture made by Marina Brinner of Heart Homes, and it’s all available at Little Steps. There’s all kinds of furniture too – some are for kid’s avatars, to use, some are for babies – and the ones that are for babies work just fine for both parents to use, no matter who’s doing what in the picture (yes, dad, you get to change diapers too, and have a little one chowing down on your tits).

Now, let’s look at some pretty pictures, ok? Click on them to see the full version, or just stop by Little Steps to talk to Dr. Nicole, who can help you get whatever your heart desires!

Pregnancy isn’t just something that happens, and then it’s over. It brings a whole bunch of changes along with it.

Your boobs get bigger, your belly grows, your lady parts expand, you walk like a duck, not to mention a bunch of other things that I’m just way too scared to mention. All these changes are all a normal part of pregnancy, they say, no matter how abnormal it feels.

Oh, by the way, stop reading if you’re anything but a woman. You see, pregnant women have the possibility of looking very… “maternal” or radiant or whatever when they’re pregnant. Men look very strange when their boobs get bigger and their lady parts expand. Just sayin.

In any case, Little Steps has anything you’l need to get through all the stages of pregnancy. There are “XXL Sexy Mamas shapes”, to make you look nice and plump from conception day, to the day your body explodes and the little squirming pixels come out. Little Steps also has skins that are made just for these “pregnancy shapes”, so your stretch marks will be enhanced, your absdominal muscles will be flabby, and… well let’s have you check out all this magic for yourself, eh?

Pregnancy animations are also readily available at Little Steps – the AO to match your new body type. Now you can really walk like a duck, rub your tummy, suffer excruciating back pain… and I’m not sure, but I think you can get stuck in a chair without being able to get up too.

Ok, maybe it’s not that extreme, but that would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?

Little Steps, making your pregnancy beautiful, realistic and almost as strange as the real thing. Just for you!

When a woman, man, transgender, neko, furry or demon becomes pregnant, something magical happens. The bond between mother and child is something that philosophers and scientists have discussed for centuries, never quite being able to explain what it is that happens.

This bond happens also in a virtual pregnancy such as Second Life. It is a bond that is very strong, very special, and sometimes, very public.

This bond is created with your tummy-talker.

With the brand names of Kianta or Twisting Fate, your choice of talker has basically endless possibilities. Some of them you already know about. Remember that time you were at the club and were finally dancing with that hot guy you’ve been after for weeks, and just as things were getting hot and heavy, someone walks by while her fetus shouts “MY MOMMY FARTS A LOT”. Wasn’t that romantic?

Ok, maybe nothing about farting, but you know what I’m talking about.

The talkers help you maintain that bond with your unborn child, they can help people interact with your baby (yes, complete strangers can rub your abdomen. Cool, huh?), or even remind your partner to feed you those special things you crave.

Like pickles and ice cream. Or chocolate and bacon. Or kittens and tuna.

You can also turn your baby’s “voice” down to a whisper, so the entire club doesn’t have to learn that it’s time to take your vitamins, your boobs are feeling more sensitive, or that you have explosive projectile diarrea.

Thank heavens the talkers have a lot of options that you can customise just how you like!

Ah yes, the bond between mother and child. So special, and so possibile in Second Life. Just ask Dr. Nicole at Little Steps if you have any questions on how to make that bond work for you, too!

Aah yes. You have decided to have a baby, a beautiful bundle of squirming, giggling, pooping pixels. But how?

The whole process gives you just about as many options as in real life, and possibly even more! More?

Well, in Second LIfe, condoms come with the HUD, and they’re free. So you never run out. Or rather, you never “run out”, so no more excuses for unprotected sex!

Oh, wait. Unprotected sex is kinda what it’s all about, at least if you’re trying to get knocked up. But, let’s say that this month you don’t want to get knocked up? Wrap it up, boys.

Wow, I’ve gone directly from you wanting to get pregnant, to your partner using condoms. How’s that for unfocused?

So, you want to get pregnant. In Second Life. Well, just like in rl, you have to put a HUD on. Ok, maybe not just like in rl, but you still have to put a HUD on. There’s a HUD for the potential pregnant person, and a HUD for the potential “get the potential pregnant person pregnant” person. See, I’m being all-inclusive here, because, well this is SL after all. Vaginas are not a prerequisite for babymaking anymore. They’re probably nice to have, if you happen to have one, but in SL, your HUD is your new genitalia.

So, you have the HUDs, the ones that you’ve decided on getting after talking to the wonderful staff at Little Steps – yes, there are several choices, all designed with tons of options. But now what?

You boink. Doh.

OR, you can go the artificial insemination route. Test-tube pixels are all the rage nowadays, and completely possible. Just talk to Dr. Nicole and she’ll knock you up real good.

Boinking doesn’t mean you get automatically pregnant though. You have options. You have limitations. You have periods, you have fertility cycles. You have headaches, your partner can’t get it up. Lots of things to think about.

But one happy day it happens. You have a bun in the oven, and soon your tummy will begin talking to you (we’ll cover that in another post – baby pixels learn to talk at the early age of a couple minutes after conception). Your tummy will also begin talking to anyone who will listen.

There you have it. “How to get pregnant the natural way in SL”. Any questions? Then stop by Little Steps and talk to the wonderful staff there. You won’t regret it, or at least, you won’t regret it nearly as much as that one night stand from the other night at the club with whats-his-face.

Little Steps is a maternity clinic located on “Linked Hearts”. It’s an amazing clinic, with a very qualified staff, and an atmosphere that is more than perfect for bringing a lovely bundle of pixelated joy into this virtual world. Did I mention that it’s run by Dr. Nicole Jewell, who is the foremost expert on virtual lady-organs and how to make pixels pop out of them?

LoveFactory, run by LoveFactory Violet, is the foremost retailer of beautiful… stuff in all of SL. If you can imagine it, it’s there. Violet specialises in “love stuff” – go visit it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, they got together, and the result is… feet.

I’m not quite sure what this means. It could be, that they didn’t have enough baby mojo to make the rest of the baby? They ran out of pixels after the feet were done? They used so much colour in the feet that there wasn’t enough for the rest of the baby, and the baby really is there, but invisible?

Whatever happened, I actually think it’s kinda cool. These footprints look really well made (like we’ve come to expect from Violet) and little footprints = Little Steps – get it?

In any case, awesome footsies, and they’re FREE. Click on the pic to be brought to the Marketplace for this item, and you TOO can have your very own invisible baby except for the feet!

Check out the LoveFactory blog too – I hear they have a blog write that is just too cool for words!