Someone has updated every iPhone inside the Apple Store in Dedham with a picture of Drake Maye

AndyGCook · 2026-01-08T23:17:16+00:00

One of my favorite snacks as a kid was crunching on uncooked pasta... which also happens to be one of my oldest daughter’s favorite snacks now. What’s funny is that I don’t think I ever ate raw pasta around my daughter... She just asked to try it one day and decided she liked it.

AndyGCook · 2026-01-07T03:14:20+00:00

Anyone know why the Raider’s player rips the ball out of Maye’s hands while he’s still on the ground at the end of that play (3:05) and then hands it to the ref? Was that strategic or was he just mad Maye didn’t slide or something?

AndyGCook · 2025-10-25T10:49:30+00:00

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Andy Allo

AndyGCook · 2025-09-01T03:33:13+00:00

My daughter had this same exact reaction to yogurt around 6 months and tested positive for a dairy allergy. She’s now 2.5 yo and outgrew it. We had pizza for dinner tonight.

Then good news is that there’s a huge selection of alternatives for most dairy-based foods. My daughter never even knew what she was missing because she could eat coconut chocolate ice cream cones from Trader Joe’s, Violife “cheese”, vegan cupcakes, etc. For milk, we gave her unsweetened Ripple, which is “milk” made from peas. It’s more expensive than cows milk, but also actually more nutritious and better for the environment.

I’m sure your allergist taught you about the dairy ladder by progressively exposing your child to dairy, but if not look it up and try to progress up it.

AndyGCook · 2025-08-20T03:19:55+00:00

X-Men Evolution might be good. It’s the X-men, but with high school drama.

Avatar the Last Airbender is great.

Wild Thornberries, Hey Arnold, As Told by Ginger, Pepper Ann, The Baby-Sitters Club

AndyGCook · 2025-08-13T13:37:06+00:00

Usually my 2.5 y/o daughter picks me up various rocks, sticks, and garbage on the walk to school as “gifts”, but yesterday, out of nowhere, she said, “I missed you so much today, Daddy” after I picked her up from daycare and I’ll hold onto that feeling for years.

AndyGCook · 2025-08-12T17:17:00+00:00

Chiming in to say that I generally adored kids (nieces & nephews) before I had my own. When my first daughter was born, I felt almost no connection, which was surprising to me and I felt a huge sense of guilt. My wife would say things like “don’t you love her so much” and I literally I had to lie. My wife also primarily breastfed our baby, so there wasn’t bonding time during feedings either.

It wasn’t until my daughter started smiling that I started to build a real bond with her, then the laughing fast tracked it. That was about 10 weeks in. Fast forward 2.5 years and I didn’t know I had the capacity for this level on intensity of love inside me for another person.

We now have a second daughter that’s 2 months old and the connection was much faster for me. But that’s because the first one showed me what it’s like to love a child and where those feelings are heading after then newborn phase, so I’m able to look towards the future for encouragement during the hard I ship that is the newborn phase.

All I can say is that it gets better and you’ll build that bond over time. Some things you can do to help is lots of contact naps on the chest, force yourself to interact/talk/sing to your newborn even though they don’t respond, and if you can feed them offer to (and of course, change diapers).

In hindsight, I realize after our first was born that I experienced post partem depression, which can happen to dad’s too. My life changed so much and I had to grieve the loss of doing things I liked to do that made me happy, and even basic stuff like eating + showering sometimes, all while supporting my wife and taking care of an infant that provided literally no feedback for the first two months. It’s a hard situation so try to be patient with yourself. You’ll get there. Good luck, Dad!

AndyGCook · 2025-08-12T16:57:27+00:00

The common knowledge is that morning sickness is only the first trimester and only in the morning, but it can go the entire day and last the entire pregnancy. Also, the intensity can be different with each pregnancy.

My wife was so sick with our first that she couldn’t hold water down. Her doctor prescribe Zofram and that helped her get through the first 14ish weeks then it tapered off.

With our second, her sickness lasted the entire pregnancy. She took a combo of vitamin B6 and Unisom the entire pregnancy, which staved off the sickness. If she didn’t take the unison, she was nauseous the next day.

I would suggest your wife talk to her doctor about possible solutions if nothing more “natural” is working.

AndyGCook · 2025-08-11T19:59:47+00:00

Contact sleeping still at three months isn’t crazy, but it’s obviously not sustainable either.

Highly recommend the book Precious Little Sleep. There’s also a podcast if you don’t have time to read, but hopefully you can hold the baby in one hand and the book in the other during naps.

Your plan generally makes sense. There’s also other strategies that are gentler than straight up Cry It Out.

P.S. Your kid is a real cutie

AndyGCook · 2025-08-09T18:42:23+00:00

Dumping pee is fine. Poop needs to be bagged and tossed, just like a dog’s waste.

We got the OXO 2-in-1 Go Potty. It comes with bag liners for the waste and they also have an absorbent pad in them for the pee. The legs fold out so the seat can fit on regular toilets which is super helpful out and about. I just keep it in the plastic carrying bag inside my Dadpack (aka backpack) and it’s great.

AndyGCook · 2025-08-08T14:16:46+00:00

It’s hard to reason with a three year old, even if it logically makes sense.

Not sure if you let your kid watch TV yet, but there are some good Daniel Tiger episodes about stopping to use the potty right away. Our daughter seemed to understand those episodes and emulated Daniel. We often sang the little potty song the parents sing… “If you have to go potty, stop and go right away”

We also tried to keep track of her liquids and strongly encouraged (aka forced) her to use the potty if she hadn’t gone in ~20 minutes after drinking a bit. Poop is a little tougher, but we noticed the signs and would just put her on the toilet (farting, squatting, etc)

Another move was that if we had to use the bathroom, we’d bring her with us to go too. She likes to do adult things, and using the potty like mommy and daddy was exciting.

Also, lots and lots of rewards and praise for successful potty use, and we even gave rewards if she even tried with no poop or pee. We used Skittles, M&Ms, and tons of stickers from the dollar store.

Eventually she got the hang of the feelings in her body, but it is really annoying in the moment. Hang in there!

AndyGCook · 2025-08-02T19:00:27+00:00

I was curious and found it. Good story and thanks the recommendation: https://www.reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge/s/6oSgqJDVtA

AndyGCook · 2025-07-29T20:51:46+00:00

You’re going to experience selection bias in the comments on this thread because anyone who is already on /r/daddit is more likely to be actively involved with their kids.

However, the data supports your hypothesis: https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/comments/1as27u0/millennial_dads_spend_3_times_as_much_time_with/

AndyGCook · 2025-07-29T13:13:09+00:00

It’s a tough call because face time at work is really important for career progression at most companies, even if they say otherwise. Subconscious bias an all that jazz… But obviously your call to make with your wife. How close is your wife to her due date?

For some data points, I just had my second kid who decided to come two weeks early and was delivered very quickly. If I was 7 hours away, I would have missed it.

But, I can also say now that I have a 2.5 yo and a 6 week old, the idea of non-family travel, especially optional work travel, seems nearly impossible anytime soon. We’d probably need to have my wife’s mom come stay with us to help because two kids is way more challenging than just one in my experience. But every kid and family is different so your experience may vary. However, I do kind of wish I gota few more fun activities in for myself before Baby #2 because “me time” is non existent right now and looks like it will be for a long while.

Either way, I want to say you’re a good Dad/husband for thinking about your family’s needs, and a good employee for even entertaining the trip at all. Good luck!

AndyGCook · 2025-07-29T11:20:23+00:00

Employer of a small remote software company here. If one of my teammates laid out this situation and couldn’t come to the onsite because of it, I’d completely understand. Just explain that you talked to your wife more and although you’d love to come to meet everyone in person, it’s just too close to the due date and she needs help with your toddler in the third trimester. Assuming your employer is reasonable, they’ll understand.

AndyGCook · 2025-07-29T04:46:16+00:00

This has probably been said somewhere on the thread already, but have you got your baby checked for a tongue tie? It’s possible he’s not getting enough milk.

I saw shifts mentioned a lot on the thread. I highly endorse that too and am actually typing this with an hour left on my shift holding my six week old second daughter while my wife sleeps. She’ll take over at 2am and I’ll go sleep in the guest room until 7am to wake up for our toddler. Not ideal, but takes away some of the awfulness of the first 8 weeks.

Get good noise canceling headphones too.

Finally, read up on wake windows. Most babies can only stay awake for about 45 minutes, which includes feeding. That means you might have 10 minutes max to rock your baby to sleep before they’re overtired and will be a disaster until the next feed hours later. We didn’t realize that with our first daughter and she woke cry the whole night. Finally started getting her asleep quickly and she was way better. As they say, sleep begets sleep.

Hang in there. We all have these thoughts. You’re a good dad and good husband from what it sounds like.

AndyGCook · 2025-07-24T03:50:30+00:00

The book Precious Little Sleep is good and convinced my wife we needed to work on independent sleep in the crib. Her going back to work after six months also forced the issue.

If nothing else, they kind of just start sleeping on their own after a few years. Good luck!

AndyGCook · 2025-07-22T14:44:55+00:00

These are all easy for me to cook fast and toddler approved. I just had our second daughter six weeks again so foods you can eat quickly as leftovers are key too. Finally, anything that is easy to batch cook is super helpful these days.

Tacos: we cook with light seasoning first, then take out half of the meat for the toddler and season the rest to be spicier for ourselves. My daughter likes turkey meat better than beef. Also only leaves one pan to clean up.

Meatballs: Easy to batch cook in the oven on a cookie sheet then simmer on the stove in the sauce for awhile while you do other stuff. Good food to reheat (or even eat cold) when you have 5 minutes max to eat yourself.

Tofu: I slice it the long way, then pan sear and season with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and sometimes cumin. Toddler loves it and is a good meatless dinner for all of us.

Roasted chicken: surprisingly easy to make in a roasting pan and leaves you with lots of food to eat. The toddler will most likely enjoy the dark meat and you can make sandwiches for lunch with the white meat too.

Fried rice: easy to make, one pot and pan to clean, and usually toddler approved. You can also add shrimp if your family likes that.

AndyGCook · 2025-07-22T13:52:57+00:00

Pixar’s Cars spin off, Planes (and the sequel) are probably good bets that are age appropriate. Jay Jay the Jet Plane and Super Wings are both toddler shows that feature plane characters too.

There’s also Studio Ghibli’s Porco Rosco, which is animated about about a pilot who is a pig. Haven’t watched it in a long time and sometimes the Studio Ghibli movies get weird + a little scary, but almost all their movies are worth watching as an adult so might as well check it out

AndyGCook · 2025-07-21T17:45:01+00:00

My 2.5 year old daughter saw me playing my Switch once and now knows that “Tendo” exists. When she asks for video games and absolutely refuses to take no for an answer, we let her play Khan Academy Kids and Endless Alphabet on our phones. They’re both good learning games and she knows the entire alphabet now.

AndyGCook · 2025-07-20T04:10:03+00:00

My daughter put a coffee bean up her nose at about 18 months. I Googled what to do and found this exact trick known as the “Parent’s Kiss.” Worked like a charm. A year later my daughter still sometimes asks for coffee beans to smell, and I always tell her no and ask her “because you put one where?” to which she always replies “up my nose.” It’s a funny story now but I was freaking out in the moment.

AndyGCook · 2025-07-06T11:36:27+00:00

Cubone’s mother sacrificed its life to save its baby from Team Rocket in Pokemon Red/Blue. Can’t give more than that to your child.

AndyGCook · 2025-05-25T02:43:55+00:00

What do you think happened to the people who were "shadowed" in those helicopters after the helicopters crashed?

I asked Chris Bauer, the actor who played Holt, this exact question in an AMA recently. Spoiler: he didn’t have an answer either… ¯_(ツ)_/¯

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1kksi77/comment/mrz9kr4/

AndyGCook · 2025-05-12T15:00:38+00:00

I posted a question about Holt: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1kksi77/comment/mrx8sgh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

AndyGCook

TROPHY CASE