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November, 2004: Nothing is sacred anymore – I now understand it. It has taken me just four weeks to realize what every parent has long known; that there will be no stone unturned, no corner of this house untouched. Every closet, window sill, drawer and pantry; down to the last trinket or scrap of loose change will be analyzed, and/or manipulated by these children at least once, if not hundreds of times.

At first, some of Elizabeth’s child-proofing measures seemed a bit excessive. Most made perfect sense, like those plastic electrical outlet covers everywhere, and the cabinet door restraints against toxic cleaning chemicals – those were a no-brainer even for me. But screwing the book cases to the wall; come on – what are the odds? Now, nearly four weeks since the ceaseless pitter-patter of little feet on these floors began, I would have to admit that the odds of Ben trying to ascend the tall green book case like a ladder are pretty damn likely.

My first rude awakening came just a few nights after they arrived. In the unfinished kitchen/dining space, one of the doors to the rear hallway had been taken off its hinges to accommodate the new floor trim. It and was left leaning up against the wall, weighing no more that 10 or 15 pounds, frail enough to put a fist through. Yet I watched in horror as Ben, in a split-second, ran across the room and tugged firmly at the unattached door’s handle, bringing it swiftly down on top of him. It was as if he was driven by some unseen force of curiosity to the most dangerous thing in the room. Boom – down it came. Thankfully Ben was more startled than injured; Elizabeth and I however, were in a bit of a panic. Later, once the kids were safely tucked in, she broke down in tears. I felt the same guilt, for it was essentially my responsibility to take care of these details.

I made a vow. From now on, no more tempting of fate. No more assuming the children would keep their hands off anything dangerous left in their path. We needed complete and uncompromising safety, everywhere, and in all rooms.

This would not prove to be an easy feat.

Small children are like criminals: you can’t stop them entirely, police always say, all you can hope to do is slow them down. Consider the “child-proof” cabinet door restraint, a little white plastic strap tightened over each knob, making it impossible to open the double doors below the kitchen sink. Dexterous and motivated young Ben, after observing the adults only a few times actually removes the straps himself, opens the doors, looks around (thankfully he doesn’t touch anything), then closes them. His quest for knowledge is satisfied for the time being. He turns toward me, his mop of curly hair waving, grinning broadly – he’s clearly pleased with his feat of ingenuity.

In just four short weeks I have also found that there no longer is such a thing as privacy. I am okay with this, for I am attempting to create the kind of home that I would want to grow up in as a child, with access to everywhere that doesn’t pose a danger, no locks on the doors except to the outside. This was the kind of house that I grew up in, where I learned to respect those things that I had no business messing with. However I have not been able to reinforce any sort of boundaries with Josh and Ben. It’s as if I’m just some over-sized kid to them. Anything I have, they should have too.

This is a strange and beautiful world; 2000 is undoubtedly a wonderful year in which to be a child. It seems in the past twenty years, while I was pre-occupied with only adult matters, the world of children has been expanding, evolving into a 24 hour, seven day a week multi-billion dollar conglomerate. On my cable, I had scrolled past the Nickelodeon network many times, sometimes catching TV Land reruns in the wee hours. But now I have discovered the glorious fact that during the middle of the day Nickolodeon (or “Nick”) becomes a non-stop cartoon fest. 18 hours per day! It’s not just Sesame Street, The Electric Company and Bugs Bunny anymore. Now there’s dozens of VHS tapes of Barney and Friends, Thomas the Tank Engine, Rugrats, Teletubbies, Blues Clues, Bob the Builder and an exuberant animated newcomer of Hispanic persuasion, Dora the Explorer. This dizzying assortment entertains Ben these days, although Thomas or Rugrats will still stop Josh dead in his tracks.

I am enthusiastic about all of this; the children have become my cause, and I’m conspicuously available every chance I can get. I must know everything. Natural parents are slowly weaned into this. But for me, I’ve been shot through a cannon, right into the brave frontier of Barney’s tree house.

Equally exciting to me is the way the grand architects of this child-fantasy-realm have cleverly built portals back into the adult world, both for our amusement and our sanity. Although Sesame Street and The Muppets regularly featured guest celebrities when I was a kid, it never resounded with me as it does with me now that I’m an adult. Thus, celebrity placement among kid’s movies and TV shows today seems more commonplace. George Carlin and Ringo Starr as narrators of the docile, demure Thomas the Tank Engine series struck me first, but there are many others. It is still 2000, so we have yet to be deluged with the constant barrage of A-list celebrity voiced, computer-animated block-buster feature length movies from Pixar, Dreamworks and Sony, so Robin Williams as the voice of the good old fashioned animated Aladin from Walt Disney is still a raucous novelty. Harry Conick Jr. and Jenifer Aniston in Brad Byrd’s brilliantly moving The Iron Giant was a rare surprise, and Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Wallace Shawn as the main characters in Toy Story is approaching genius.

And then there is Sponge Bob Square Pants. My admiration for Sponge Bob, and his cartoon friends Patrick, Gary, Squidward, Sandy, Mr. Crab and their human creators is limitless. This is the kind of cartoon I myself would be proud to produce, if, that is, I had an unlimited daily supply of marijuana and nearly unlimited backing from a major children cable network.

This part of the kid thing is fun – I could definitely get used to this. It would be another six months before I would begin to grow weary of the constant screaming, fighting, biting and the utter dissolution of any free moments to myself in my house whatsoever. It would be another nine months before I would find myself unwittingly locked into a battle of wills with a fast moving toddler and a clever six year old, with simple household events often spiraling into a Roadrunner-esque farce (me being, of course, the hapless coyote). It would be another two years before I would find myself spending nearly all my time, energy, guile, and seriously lacking physical prowess to break up the non-stop, knock-down, drag-out rivalry that has evolved between two highly competitive brothers.

I am just a few weeks away from being able to officially hang the shingle of “step dad” on my front door, to complement the tricycle, skate boards and Tonka trucks that have suddenly appeared in my driveway. But right now I am enchanted by Sponge Bob. Right at this moment, it’s all about the kids.

(This is an excerpt from "They Call Me Wheels", a memoir by Geoffrey E. Matesky, NOW AVAILABLE from iUniverse, Amazon.com, & Barnes & Noble (bn.com). If you are a bookseller and wish to obtain copies, please contact the sales department of my publisher, iUniverse.com for more details.)