When you figure out that you're going to be a parent, you know some things are headed your way. Unconditional love. A large helping of worry. Doctor bills. Dentist bills.

When you figure out that you're going to be a parent of two boys, you know that physical play is part of it. Boys want to wrestle. My boys want to wrestle, jump off things, jump into things, fight with light sabers, kick things and bounce off big objects like cars, refrigerators and their father.

I grew up in a house of boys – four boys total. So I sort of knew what to expect. I also knew that boys love to burp and do gross things and say gross things and then burp some more. My boys are 7 and 4 and they still let rip with a loud gas emission at the dinner table that just shocks my wife. That's when she looks at me as if she really can't believe that I have reduced her to this. She will, on occasion, muster up the will to call down our Burp Masters on their behavior. I think the battle was over when the two filthy X and Y chromosomes paired up.

While I am generally impervious by the boylike behavior that has engulfed our home, I can't say that I ever expected my two boys – who are, I must say at this point, genuinely decent children who go to church and pray often – to have utterly and systematically trashed our home in a manner that is astonishing to behold. They aren't simply mindless tots who don't remember to pick up their toys. They are active agents in reducing the value of our home and turning it into carpeted rubble.

They have help, of course. The toys that we have willingly brought into our home are Legos, Transformers, Bionicals and other instruments of pure evil with one gazillion small parts that can be thrown on the floor or under a bed or placed on a plate in the refrigerator. We could even suffer through this Lego-Transformer-Bionical phase if our boys weren't blind. Oh, wait, they aren't really blind, but they do have a congenital condition that makes it impossible to find the toy/sock/shoe/Popsicle that's right next to them on the floor. It helps sometimes when they trip over the object they are supposed to be looking for – but sometimes not.

But there's a deeper problem. Boys – maybe not your boys (lucky!), but definitely mine – want to tear things apart. This is not a whim. This is a prime directive. An innocent crayon sitting prettily in a box begs to be torn into with the impossibly small bits of crayon paper scattered about before the crayon itself is broken into many pieces. Clean clothes fresh from the dryer must – I repeat, must! – be tossed up in the air or used as a weapon against the other brother. After tiring of the Beat the Brother With The Clothes Game, the clothes have to be wedged under a couch cushion or tossed in some puddle of grease. If you can't find a puddle of grease right away, then you have to get your fingers dirty with Cheetos, then wipe them on the clean clothes. This is all a rigorous process, I know, but it is how it is done.

But we do count our blessings. We do. We are fortunate, I suppose, that on occasion our boys do sleep. And that our house isn't for sale. Yet.

(Werner Trieschmann is a freelance writer, editor and playwright. He writes for anybody who will have him. He lives in Little Rock with his wife and two boys, who really are sweet, honest. When can they come over and stay at your house? You can read more of Werner's work at wernertplays.com.)