A few years ago, cradles and lawnmowers were the furthest thing from my mind … and my friends’, as well. But I’m now at the age where every few months, another goofy friend that I’ve known for years reveals that he’s going to be a father. Crazy! In fact, one of my recent conversations included a talk about my soon-to-be new house and some of the landscaping I want to do, while my buddy talked about how he was recently in the town I’m moving to … shopping for a baby carriage. Age, it seems, is catching up to me.

However, though none of us can stop father time; as an investor, it always pays to stay young at heart. By that, I mean you should always focus on what’s young, new and fresh on the scene. And one of the best ways to do that is to keep track of hot initial public offerings (IPOs).

There are usually at least a couple of IPOs per week; most are nothing to write home about, but every now and again you get a Google (2004), VMWare (2007) or Visa (2008), not to mention smaller glamour stocks like First Solar and Crocs (both 2006). These days, however, the situation is different. Because of the historic bear market, the IPO pipeline has not only dried up, it has vanished; there were literally just a couple of IPOs in the entire market between last summer and March!

The result is that there are very few IPOs to follow right now. That’s both good and bad–good, because that means there’s a limited supply of new shares, which will help drive prices higher, but bad because there are fewer potential leaders to latch onto than there would be otherwise.

The good news is that the IPO business is s…l…o…w…l…y coming around, and two fundamentally intriguing firms have recently come public.

One is Changyou.com (CYOU), and this one has big potential. It’s a Chinese online game operator, and that sector is one of the strongest in the market. (Shanda (SNDA) and NetEase (NTES) are two other super-strong group mates.) Revenues at Changyou soared 379% last year and earnings jumped to $2.11 a share. The only potential problem is that most of its business comes from just one game. But more games are being developed, and the stock is consolidating south of 29. If it does that for another week, and then breaks out, it could be ready for a big run. Interestingly, the stock is valued only at 13 times earnings, which could be an added plus. Earnings are due out next Monday.

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The other stock, which I admit I haven’t done enough research on, is Rosetta Stone (RST), the language education firm. You might have seen the company’s kiosks in various malls (I know there’s one in the Prudential Mall in Boston), and its claim to fame is easy-to-use, interactive software that helps people learn a new language. Obviously, English is a big deal in this industry, and in fact, the company has a classroom product that addresses the English-as-a-second-language market. But Rosetta’s software can teach 30 different languages, and there’s mass market potential here. We like that sales are up 57%, 72% and 54% in the past three quarters. The stock just came public two weeks ago, so it’s very early. But it’s worth watching; a jump above 29.5, possibly on earnings (due out May 11), would be great.

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Regardless of whether CYOU or RST succeed or not, you should keep an eye on the new issue market. If my hunch is right, more exciting names will be coming public in the months ahead, and some of them will turn into dazzling market leaders.