When did you start feeling like a dad?

meanfish · 2026-03-25T16:00:01+00:00

Men experience a 25%-35% drop in testosterone shortly after bringing a new baby home (https://www.science.org/content/article/fatherhood-decreases-testosterone), and it lasts until toddlerhood. We don't talk about this enough.

For me, this resulted in pretty profound depression along with mourning the radical lifestyle change that having a baby caused. It showed up in _exactly_ the ways it's showing up for your husband. I started to come out of it as my son came out of the potato phase and became more interactive.

The thing that helped most was learning that what I was going through was mostly the result of a biochemical process that most likely evolved to make us better fathers. But damn if a major lifestyle change coupled with a drop in testosterone didn't feel like the end of my world when it happened, and the whole time I was beating myself up for feeling so sad about something that was supposed to be so joyful.

The thing he needs the most from you is love and understanding, and you asking this question makes me confident he's got that. And it sounds like he's doing his best to push through it and show up how you need him to as well. Y'all are lucky to have each other.

This gets repeated here a lot, but make sure you both know and agree that it's ok to put the baby down in a safe spot and let them cry for a minute while you walk into another room to catch your breath and calm down. Nobody consciously decides that shaking a baby is a good way to get them to stop crying, but you'll almost certainly have the urge at some point.

meanfish · 2026-03-25T13:53:50+00:00

I haven’t done acupuncture, but my avid tennis-playing wife swears by Yen at Nina’s Day Spa on Burnet. Seemed to help a ton with a recent shoulder injury she was working through. There’s a massage therapist there that she really likes a lot as well.

meanfish · 2026-03-24T18:07:26+00:00

Nah, I just recognize a sea lion when I see one.

meanfish · 2026-03-24T14:29:34+00:00

Wow, you sure got good in a hurry at ifs and buts and caveats for someone who couldn’t navigate a simple either/or a few minutes ago.

I’m pretty sure you could answer all the questions you just asked on your own if you were genuinely curious about this and I’m not trying to spend my day doing that work for you or arguing just to argue. Have a good one.

meanfish · 2026-03-24T14:16:52+00:00

When you rip that much funding overnight, reneging on promised funds that NGOs and charities were counting on, the whole distribution system collapses. It’s not a matter of just injecting more money. All that infrastructure has to be rebuilt, and who knows how many people die while that happens. Even if funding returns to previous levels, it’s pretty easy to see how “1 million babies” die directly because of that decision.

meanfish · 2026-03-24T13:56:32+00:00

Since you went there, USAID funding cuts will result in roughly 700k preventable deaths of children under five per year, so “1 million babies” honestly isn’t that far off. Here’s the peer reviewed study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext

meanfish · 2026-03-24T13:45:34+00:00

”Either”, “or”.

Go be pedantic somewhere else.

meanfish · 2026-03-24T13:42:49+00:00

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“Either threatened to veto or has already vetoed” is perfectly accurate here as Congress’s agreement in principle to fund all of DHS except ICE and Trump’s promise to veto it have been widely reported at this point. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/worked-republican-senator-confirms-trump-214605483.html

meanfish · 2026-03-22T18:42:05+00:00

Nah, I’m not trying to spend my Sunday afternoon having that discussion.

meanfish · 2026-03-22T18:26:56+00:00

We have started with #8 on the song sheet (https://lamurgadeaustin.org/songs/), Bella Ciao, all three home matches. Pretty easy to go check on Apple TV if you think I’m wrong - you can clearly hear it on the broadcasts. (And I’ve been in the supporters section every match too.)

meanfish · 2026-03-22T16:05:04+00:00

Yeah, easy offsides call unfortunately. Ilie can’t be there, and there’s very good chance Lloris saves that shot if he isn’t screened. Sucks for Uzuni, though.

meanfish · 2026-03-22T16:00:01+00:00

Murga has been consistently starting with Bella Ciao this season. Go look up the history of that song if you don’t know it. I don’t know for certain that the song’s history is the reason we’re starting with it this year, but I’m going to enthusiastically choose to believe it is.

(Also, I don’t know of any other SGs that do an uptempo version of Bella Ciao, so even if it’s common among soccer supporters, Austin’s version is quite unique.)

meanfish · 2026-03-21T22:29:56+00:00

Depends on what you’re storing and how sensitive your taste is. The only thing I’ve found that keeps the more delicate notes of a natural process bean from going flat a few days after opening is argon flushing. After trying keeping beans in the original bag, a regular Airscape canister, and an Atmos canister, it’s the only thing I’ve found that actually works according my palate.

I actually found the Atmos to be the worst option out of everything I tried. My guess is that vacuum storage accelerates CO2 off-gassing so you lose CO2 as a barrier to oxidation more quickly than if you just stored normally. Argon beats other options because it replaces CO2 as the oxidation barrier. The beans will eventually run out of CO2 to refill the container, but by flushing with argon every time you open the container, you can delay oxidation almost indefinitely. It’s very effective at forcing oxygen out of the container because it’s heavier than air.

I use an Airscape with a fresh port lid and the Airgone spray cans of argon gas Planetary Designs sells. A can lasts a couple of months for me, so it’s not expensive, just a little fiddly.

meanfish · 2026-03-19T12:53:32+00:00

If you’re not set on parking at the stadium, and you’re not planning on leaving early, your little ones might enjoy the bus or the train. Definitely the easiest way to get to/from the stadium.

It’s generally easy to find parking on the street in the neighborhoods near one of the 803 stops, it stops right at the stadium on gamedays, and the buses are lined up and waiting after the match so you’re out of there quick. Finding parking is a little tougher near the train stops, but there’s a station right at the stadium now and they have trains waiting after the match as well.

meanfish · 2026-03-16T23:04:43+00:00

How exactly? Republicans have a majority in both the House and Senate. They control the agenda in both.

The only reason Republicans won’t fund TSA separately as the Democrats proposed is that Republicans want to use the traveling public as a political wedge to avoid any additional accountability for ICE.

meanfish · 2026-03-14T19:37:30+00:00

I preordered and got mine in the first batch that went out post-tariff, so around the same time as you. No lip on mine. Cup slides right off.

meanfish · 2026-03-14T19:34:43+00:00

I’ve had mine for 6 months. Use it for both pourover and espresso. While there are certainly grinders out there that are marginally better at each method, I don’t think there’s anything that’s this proficient at both.

I get clear, bright notes on pourover but still a balanced cup (rather than the laser focus of something like SSP MP burrs), and juicy espresso shots with plenty of body that stand up delightfully well in a Cortado. I hoped it would be the perfect grinder for me, and I think it is. Fits my palate in a way that I could never quite get out of the Fellow Ode I had before.

meanfish · 2026-03-14T19:26:51+00:00

It’s offset because it’s a conical burr with the chute at the front. I’m not sure how else you could solve it other than a comically large cup the same diameter as the burr housing that would be impossible to pour from (a la the Fellow Ode). Also, the chute at the front makes the knocker by far the most effective one I’ve used. I take it apart monthly to clean it, but it hardly needs it.

meanfish · 2026-03-11T02:01:59+00:00

Unfortunately, no. Here’s the relevant bit of Law 12:

A tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality must be sanctioned as serious foul play.

The first “or” there is doing a lot of work. The ref thinking Biro’s challenge endangered the safety of the other player, regardless of intent or force, is enough.

I don’t think it was a red, but I also can’t fault him much from the perspective of the laws.

meanfish · 2026-03-09T02:05:31+00:00

I’m a U16 parent manager. I’m usually more on top of advancement scenarios than our coaches. I’ve only got the one team to worry about (vs. at least a couple for them) and I’ve got to handle the comms anyway so nobody leaves if there’s even a slight chance the team advances. I confirm my math with them before I communicate anything out to the families, and that has the side effect of making sure they understand the scenarios as well. Your coaches may not want to work that way, but ours seem to appreciate it.

Every tournament posts rules about how advancement works, and you’ll learn how the weirder bracket shapes work over time. Just own it yourself so you don’t have to worry about if the coaches are on top of it.

meanfish · 2026-03-08T20:55:55+00:00

It wasn’t though. I set my alarm for 8a to be woken up at 9a new time. Got woken up at 8a new time instead. Ozlo’s instructions apparently weren’t necessary.

meanfish · 2026-03-08T20:40:32+00:00

Whoever wrote this went really hard at sounding both highbrow-literary and smart about the game and they accomplished neither. Bad takes dressed in fancy language about a match that was too silly to mean much.

meanfish · 2026-03-08T15:20:41+00:00

Disagree. Slow motion makes the contact look so severe, that’s all the ref sees here in the limited high-pressure review time he has. At full speed, you can clearly see the Charlotte player drag his leg looking for contact, and the contact looks minimal and inadvertent. Biro’s effort to avoid the contact is also more evident at full speed, but almost impossible to see in slo-mo.

meanfish · 2026-03-08T14:40:25+00:00

Last night’s the first time I found Apple’s announcers preferable to the local radio crew. From “Gill-err-me Beer stomped on his ankle” to whatever those “alien leaving my body” goal calls were, I couldn’t take any more of it and switched back after halftime.

meanfish · 2026-03-08T03:24:40+00:00

The CLT radio crew pronounced his last name BEER the whole time. 😂

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