VISIT: RadicalDadding.com
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” -ME
This is a place for ALL Dad’s (regular guys) make special moments happen creating extraordinary memories for their kids. Who wants to have fun & connect with their children in unconventional, creative & MEMORABLE ways? ROBERT! AND hopefully YOU too! This former 21 year NBA Mascot, is a single dad of 2 sets of twins because God cursed…HE MEANS BLESSED HIM:), sons & daughters!
There will be a new addition/idea in the form of a picture & explanation of a Radical Dadding Experience that the Boudwin Family shared with each other 1st & then with you every WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON to give you Dads a little mid week chuckle and hopefully inspire an idea for your upcoming weekend with your little RADICAL ONES.
Introduction by James “Wegs” Wegerbauer
How to Raise Kids Little Radicals Who Can Think for Themselves…And Have Fun!
“You Have to Challenge Authority. Be a Rebel. Your Most Important Social Responsibility is to Prevent the Abuse of Those Who Are in Power. Question Them.” – Jorge Ramos, Journalist
Being the father of twins is different. Being the father of two sets of twins is really different. Having those two sets of twins with two different women (Robert interjecting here: from two separate marriages…just making sure there is not misunderstanding here about polygamy:) is really, really different. But then again, he is different kind of guy. Just look at him. Literally look at him and his body. 135 tattoos and counting! As one says, “ALL IN”. A true “ENEMY OF THE ORDINARY” his whole life as one of the tattoos says as well which is part of two completely done sleeves in white ink (Robert interjecting here again: so that I can trick some of the “suits” and “brass” into thinking I’m professional;). A two-time inductee into the Professional Mascot Hall of Fame. (Yes, such a magical place actually exists, and he has ran 2 half marathons wearing his costume to promote organ donation awareness which is a cause near and dear to his heart because his Dad’s life was saved by a double lung transplant in 2012.). And as a different kind of guy, is it so surprising that he’s a different kind of dad? Some might say a radical dad. Regardless of what others may think, here’s his take on raising independent kids who can think for themselves and stand on their own. And have a little fun doing it.
-WEGS
FROM ROBERT,
RADICAL…No, not like Tony Hawk or Shaun White, but radical none the less in the sense of anything, but tradition and definitely NOT the norm or Status Quo. In fact you will see that goal for life and especially my kids as my “superhero emblem” tattooed to the center of my chest…the words STATUS QUO inside a red circle with a red diagonal line through the middle.
I speak & write in parenthetical self effacing humor because it eases my soul and feels like a way to take power over detractors in advance. The more I think about it, being a Dad is being in the business of memory creation for the most important people in your world, your kids. I have always intended to CRUSH IT in this business more than any other!
If you are anything like me, your first real love was your career…which at some kind of wired level became your calling (agnostic by choice because I don’t think any of us have the real answer to THAT so let’s skip it which, yes, is the BIGGEST cop out in life, but don’t agree with believers or atheist either) and if you’re honest you loved more than anything. Your career. You owned it! NO ONE had any actual control early on when you had nothing to lose. Then you might have gotten married and had a wife. She was great. Regular sex and love and all that. BUT, if you are HERE, something BIG changed that shook you in a way you weren’t quite ready for… You had your first kid. Now listen, I always wanted children and pushed for it pretty hard. I ALWAYS wanted to be a Dad. I couldn’t WAIT! I opened a 529 account to save for my kids’ college education 6 years before they were even born & well before even trying to have them.
So then this life (or in my case 2 lives…twins) came into the world AND all of a sudden what was just listening to a tummy and an idea became a reality that CHANGED YOUR LIFE FOREVER. Nothing else mattered for a while. All the anxiety of how to provide and the weight of being in charge of another life that you had been experiencing during your partner’s pregnancy, completely washed away. There was something more important than your career, your wife and if you’re honest…YOURSELF. You didn’t get to really experience life like your partner who carried the child at first though.
So then you went back to filling your life with a bunch of work and feeling driven like “SHIT!” I need to make some FREAKING money to make sure this kid and their kid’s kids have money. Then at about 8 months, they started playing with you (4 month when they can make eye contact is overrated for a dad at least). You were rejuvenated if not redeemed for all your guilt of not connecting.
THIS PAGE/WEBSITE IS ALL ABOUT WHAT’S NEXT… Hope you join me on some of the “RADICAL DADDING” JOURNEYS I’VE INVESTED IN and that inspires you too! That’s what you are in for HERE…the different, the remarkable, the extreme & at very least conjuring up original, unique & memorable experiences for your children!
RADICAL DADDING EXAMPLE: When it is time to go see the Lion King “real life” CG re-booted version, this is how we roll…RADDICAL DADDING style. Yes, this will cost you about $300 all in after costumes, tickets, popcorn & slushes with 5 of us, but the memories created are priceless. Do you think any of these kids will be afraid of public speaking (the fear that many studies report people are more scared of than even death) and being center of attention when they grow up? Do you think they will have confidence in being themselves and unique individuals? I DO! Make sure to get to the theater at least an hour before previews so you have time to take photos with all the movie goers who will want them many of which who think you were hired to be there for promotion of the movie not realizing you were just a RADICAL DAD!
11/20/20 — “POCKETS”, JOKE’S ON DAD & HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT
“Pockets” has always been instruction to my twins to each grab 1 of my back pockets when entering a parking lot when my hands are full or pushing a shopping cart. Little did I know that leads to small tears then…all on one trip to the store…holes & then gaping embarrassing rips on my backside & little did I know my 1st set of twins are little sneaky ninja devils with their new phones & like to laugh at me behind my back documenting it as I continue the practice with their younger twin sisters. Good thing for me I review their phones. Better thing for you at my own expense, I love laughing especially at myself & have no shame for your enjoyment so I share.
11/11/20 — A picture is worth a 1,000 words…or in this case a picture & 24 words is worth a 1,000 words
11/8/20 — Closer To The Exit… They’ve giving this answer since they were 3 years old and you can tell they are “a little over” the joke:)
11/7/20 — Saturday Night with My Boys then & now… This Is How It Started. This Is How It Is Going. I’d have it NO other way!
11/3/20 — THE FUNNIEST STORY OF MY LIFE…to help distract you & entertain you on Election Day regardless of your affiliation:
DAD POOPS HIS OWN PANTS AT BUFFALO WILD WINGS — WHILE FLYING SOLO WITH TWIN 3 YEAR OLD SONS YOUR OPTIONS TO LOOK INCONSPICUOUS ARE LIMITED!
I know that sounds like a huge title to live up to, but I’m confident after you read this, you will agree with me. For purposes of this story and in an attempt to be a little less vulgar than some of you will no doubt find this entire story, I will be using the words poop or doody instead of the venacular sh## that I’d actually be more comfortable speaking, but will remain somewhat professional on the record. Oh YES, that is right. This is a doody bomb story, but not the kind you will at first think from the father of identical twin boys. Get ready. Stop reading here if your are easily offended. Send me an email if you are easily offended so I can make sure to stop being friends with you because there is nothing more that I can’t stand than someone who can’t laugh and laugh a lot. My bigger pet peeve is people that can’t take a joke. That said, make sure you are not eating right now because this story will be graphic and visceral. Hold onto your seats friends.
In the spring of 2012 I took my twin 2 and 1/2 year old sons Jack and Luke to lunch by myself. We decided on Buffalo Wild Wings. OK OK, I decided on Buffalo Wild Wings. I’ve been on a diet for about 5 months, but it was a cheat day and there is nothing I like more than some spicy garlic all drummies. I should mention that over the course of the last 5 months I lost 60 pounds dieting and running quite a bit training for my first marathon coming up on January 15, 2012. I went from a bloated 245 pounds with a 42 inch waist at 5’11” tall to a lean 185 pounds comfortably in 34 inch pants at the same height. For those of you who don’t appreciate dead pan, that height remark was a joke. I am headed to a goal race weight of 175 pounds with a 32 inch waist and yes the same 5’11” tall. I digress to pat myself on the back which is a frequent favorite past time of mine.
Anyway, back to Luke, Jack, and myself at Buffalo Wild Wings. We sat ourselves in a booth in the back left corner of the restaurant with Jack to my left and Luke to my right all on the same side of the booth. Aftter looking over the menu, the boys decided they wanted popcorn shrimp with Spicy Garlic sauce as a dipping sauce, 8 naked chicken tenders with honey barbaque dipping sauce, 12 all drummy spicy garlic wings, two lemonades with lids and straws, and an ice water. The all drummy wings, wings that look like mini drum sticks, are the best way to order them because the other kind of wing with the two thin parallel bones suck. Yea, I’m that guys that if your sharing wings with will eat all the drummies and leave you with the crappy other ones.
The boys and I couldn’t wait to order and devour our meal. I couldn’t wait because all I had been eating was cucumbers, red peppers, and Subway sandwiches mostly and this was a real treat. They couldn’t wait because they like to eat all the time, but once they start eating they get distracted and only eat like two bites so they are always hungry. They have ADD when it comes to eating. It is like, “Give me food! Give me food!”, but once they have it there are like, “This food thing isn’t so great, let’s go spin ourselves in circles and say the word dizzy dizzy dizzy over and over instead.”
I could see the waitress from across the room headed on her way to take our order. She had a big smile on her face while looking at us no doubt because it was a dad and 2 identical twin boys all sitting together on the same bench. I like to think it is because I am so attractive, but I know it is really because Jack and Luke are about as cute as they come. I know all parents say that, but really, my kids are much better looking than all of your’s. I’m OK. I give me a 7 and on a good day after a work out, with the right clothes, and perfect hair an 8. With personality added in, they haven’t even invented the scale to measure my hotness yet. Trust me, I’m that charming. Just ask me.
Anyway the waitress was about 40 feet away headed our way when I let out what I thought was going to be a little baby fart. It was almost 2 pm and all I had consumed that day so far was a Venti Green Hot Tea from Starbucks. Green tea is good for the metabolism and I was trying to lose more weight. Now I know most of you know what a shart is. For those of you who don’t without using profanity (very important not to use profanity in “professional” writing and I’m very professional) a shart is the combination of fart and a little bit of pooping. It is when just a little bit of doody shoots out when you think it is all going to be just air. THIS WAS NOT A SHART! With the waitress closing in fast I accidentally completely full on with an entire liquidy load pooped my own pants! I don’t know what happened. It was as if I was sitting on a toilet intentionally trying to go to the bathroom. Nothing was spared. An entire bowel movement happened filling my back side. I immediately smelled it an felt it starting to seep through not only my underwear, but also my kakhi cargo shorts, $14.99 at Target, great deal! When the waitress arrive at the table just seconds after the doody bomb was dropped, she immediately smelled “IT” too. I just smirked and looked to my right and left non-verbally indicating that it must be one of my two cute twin boys. Not so cute now are they Miss Waitress? The irony is immediately not lost on me that there are 3 people sitting at this table, two of which are in diapers and only one of which has a load in his pants. Note to self: contact depends company for possible endorsement deal.
The waitress asked what we would like and I just as calmly and as normally as ever gave her our order. After saying that she’d go put the order in and walking away I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “This is the greatest thing ever!”. Now that might sound way messed up to you, but you are not me. I remember thinking that some overwhelming percentage of people on the planet like 99.99999999% would view this as a terrible thing to happen to them. Now I’m not saying I would chose to crap myself on purpose for sh##sand giggles (sorry, could resist the pun), but I did actually as an agnostic (one who know not whether there is or is not a God and choses not to ask the question, although I secretly hope there is, but my intellect is constantly at odds with that desire to have faith) raise my hands to the ceiling of the Buffalo Wild Wings and say quietly, “Thank you GOD for the funniest story of my life!”. Yes, my immediate reaction was in fact self-effacing positive humor and elation as to the experience and knowing how many times I would no doubt relive this glory in my own head and regale others with like all of you right now.
Meanwhile the boys are starting to catch wind of things. Now neither one of them likes having their diaper changed which I really can’t understand. Speaking from the experience of having a load in my pants, I would want that doody out of my shorts ASAP where they would rather covertly hide the fact from you to avoid the dreaded diaper change. I mean they HATE having their diaper changed. They try to blame the each other all the time when I ask them if they have poop. Luke will go, ” No poop no poop! Jack poop!” when it is actually Luke who has the poop. The opposite happens as well where Jack tries to dime Luke out for his doody bombs. I can only imagine what they must have been thinking. Luke leaning in with me between them looking at Jack, “Jack that you?”. Jack looking at Luke, “Luke that you?”. Both of them looking up at me, ” Naaa, couldn’t be…”
Back to the battle field. So after the waitress left to put the order in I immediately noticed a table full of police officers sitting at the next table about 6 feet away. Now they couldn’t smell anything from that distance, but all of them men and women about 6 in total were grinning ear to ear looking back and forth between Luke, Jack, and myself. It was obvious to me they were just marveling at the cute identical twin boys sitting with their Dad happy as could be. What the police officers didn’t notice as they were staring all three of us directly in the eyes overwhelmed with the cuteness was that I was systematically shoving napkin after napkin down the back of both my underwear and short trying to sop up and absorb a much of the disaster as possible and pack my butt crack much like putting gauze into a wound to stop the bleeding. Only this wound was my butt and the blood was watery doody. These cops had no clue what I was doing right in front of them even while looking directly at each other an making eye contact with me because they were so taken with the twins. Thank goodness I had Jack and Luke’s cuteness to lay down cover for me in this fire fight.
I was left with the conundrum of what to do next. What course of action should I take? I’m sitting there as the lone adult with two 2 and a 1/2 year olds. I have a swim suit in the car for a play date we have with my friend’s two daughter at discovery green after lunch, but that is in the parking lot and I’ve already ordered. I can’t just leave the kids while I run out to the car. I can’t take the kids with me to the car because it will look like I’m running out an leaving after just having placed my order not to mention that the brown liquid has now completely sept through my shorts. I can tell by the traction I’m getting moving around on the pleather booth bench that the stain is substantial. I’m not about to ask one of the cops to watch my kids because I poopied my pants and need to go get reinforcements in my car.
I only had one choice. I phoned a friend. I called my buddy Rob who I was supposed to meet up with along with his daughters for our 3 pm play date. He answered the phone and said he was just getting the girls ready to meet us and asked if we were still on? I said yes, but that I was at Buffalo Wild Wings and having a crisis. This next part I find the funniest part of the entire story and it is completely non exaggerated truth. Without even pausing or missing a beat he said to me and I quote, “PLEASE TELL ME YOU SHIT YOURSELF!”. I’ll use the “S” word here since it is a direct quote. I was speechless which for anyone who knows me is only while I sleep. I was stunned and floored at the same time. How and why would he possibly make that exact request/question right away with no indication from me yet as to the crisis. After about 3 or 4 seconds of silence I said in a flat tone, “Actually Rob, that is exactly what I’ve done and in a big way.”. I could tell that he immediately pulled the phone away from his face a began to hysterically bellow gleefully exclaiming over and over, “Yes, yes, thank you, yes, yes, thank you!”. It was almost like he answered every phone call that way and finally hit the lottery. Now Rob is a very smart guy. The type of guy who doesn’t use adjectives like “very”. After getting over his good fortune and excitement. He came back to the phone and said without any instruction from me, “I understand. I’ll be there in 15 minutes with a bag with butt wipes and shorts.”. It was like he was the Navy Seal of I crapped my pants rescues which made me wonder if he too had some prior experience in this area, but that is only speculation.
So here I am at the table with Jack and Luke stuck waiting for our food to come as they happily doodle away with their crayons on the free coloring place mats without a care in the world. They certainly don’t seem very bothered by the fact that it smells like a toilet at the table. The food comes! I do what any of you would have done and don’t say you wouldn’t. I use 7 or 8 of those BW3 wet naps and clean my hands off as best I can. Although I never saw any brown on them from stuffing napkins down my pants, I’m assuming there might be some collateral damage or remanence. I then proceed to eat a complete finger food meal with my hands and a full load in my shorts. Ten minutes later after the table was cleared the bill came. I tipped extra. Darn kids diaper might have leaked onto the seat is what I thought the waitress would interpret it as after my retreat. Just as I was starting to get nervous about 5 minutes after signing the bill, Rob showed up. He was like my white knight! He totally played the whole situation so cool. He was like Damone in Fast Time at Ridgemont High dropping off the forgotten wallet to Mark who was on a first date with Jennifer Jason Lee’s character at the German restaurant. Rob sees us and is like, “Oh, hey Robert good to see you. Funny bumping into you and the boys like this.”. Totally cool. Totally Navy Seal of doody bomb clean up. I invited him to sit with us.
After he sat he covertly slid the bag of butt wipes and shorts he had concealed under the table to me. I asked him if he’d watch the kids as I excused myself for a tinkle. Tinkle, yeah right… He took care of Jack and Luke as I proceeded to my car to get my swim suit then back inside to the bathroom. I didn’t want to use his shorts. I just wouldn’t do that to a friend. Now picture this. I’m not going to just walk to the bathroom with a big brown stain on my butt for the whole world of chicken wing lovers to see, but I’m also not going to overtly cover my butt with a plastic bag as I run to the bathroom. I choose what must have looked like a slightly exaggerated pimp walk where the bags swayed from side to side behind me giving as much coverage as possible while actually most likely being construed as a weirdo trying to walk like he was a rapper on stage or something along those lines. Once safely inside the men’s room and in a secure locked stall (I was lucky the lone stall was not occupied), I took both my shorts and underwear off and threw them directly into the trash never to be seen or in this case smelled from again. I cleaned up thoroughly with butt wipes. These are the same type of butt wipes I used earlier and later that same day on my sons only my boys are 2 and should be having them used on them. I threw my swim trunks on, washed my hands like I’ve never washed them before, grabbed the kids and Rob, and high tailed it out of there.
The second I got to the car after securing Jack and Luke into their car seats, I immediately called my 3 best friends who live in the Washington D.C. Area, the New York City area, and the Milwaukee area to brag and share this good fortune. To a person they all had the same reaction. “I’m not sure what makes you more deranged, that you allowed this to happen or that you are instantly calling me to brag like you’ve achieved something great. This is the funniest story of my life to date! What is your’s?
11/2/31 — 5 family costumes for 5 as a single dad & his 2 sets of twins for Halloween 2020 with a surprise Candy Cannon for safe social distance Trick or Treating! 
10/31/20 — Halloween 2020 — Dragons, Unicorns Ninjago & Cobra Kai get creative with how to safely dole out candy and Dad has an “interesting” costume to match his twin daughters as well as his twins sons! Social Distance Trick Or Treating T-Shirt Cannon Turned Candy Cannon!
Police Checking Out My Artillery at 28 SEC & Thanking Mail Woman In Her Truck At 51 SEC :):):)
10/28/20 — HALLOWEEN 2020 — WHY HAVE 1 SET OF COSTUMES WHEN YOU CAN HAVE 5 SETS?
#1 — Well…it was “kind of” a SH## year. Can’t think of any better costume:)
#2 — Just when we thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse, aliens invaded and only came to our home to get us:(
#3 — Yes I know this costume was not intended for a “slightly” over weight middle aged straight man and pretty much intended for the exact opposite, BUT my daughters LOVE Rainbow Unicorns. I will get some questionable looks to say the least and need my daughters to stay within a 10 foot radius in their “matching” costumes at all times otherwise the cops might show up to question me Halloween night:)
#4 — Cobra Kai was second only to Tiger King this year and I wouldn’t let the kids watch Tiger King so this was a no brainer. The girls are actually wearing their brothers original Gees from Tae Kwon Do training. The boys are infatuated with Lego Ninjago, and I’m a TEAM JOHNNY fan!
#5 — Here were time warped back to Halloween 1986 all as Cobra Kai.
ROBERT BOUDWIN 