Parenting can be challenging at the best of times. My husband and I have two fine sons and have been delighted to watch them grow into men we can be proud of, but, we do have stories, like all families, that stand out and are told time and again. The one I will relate is about our youngest.

As a military family, we traveled and lived wherever the Army sent us. As an aviation officer who flew Chinook helicopters, my husband was assigned to fun and interesting places. We went where he went, and at the time of this story we lived at Aviano Air Force Base, in Aviano, Italy.

We lived out in the community and rented from an Italian landlady who lived on the top floor of our building. We lived on the bottom floor and had to adapt to an Italian way of life. One of the ways meant having windows with no screens that you opened wide each day. She often stopped by and stuck her head in for a chat, in Italian, of course. Our oldest was five and the youngest was two months when we moved to Italy.

Our youngest son had won the heart and soul of the landlady, Maria. She had never married and treated him like her own grandson. Maria pampered and petted him and called him her bambino. I didn't mind, she was a good friend after a while, and taught me to speak a little Italian. Our son's first words were Italian, so you can see we spent a lot of time with her.

On this day, my husband and his helicopter unit had been sent to Croatia on a mission. It was towards the end of the day and our oldest had come home from school. The youngest was a big toddler by then and both of them were playing with their toys.

All of a sudden our oldest came and said "Momma, Andrew has done something wrong." I asked what had he done and was told he had put something in his nose. I was immediately concerned and rushed to see if I could take it out. I grabbed him up holding him high while trying to see up his nose. I turned him this way and that but didn't see anything. It was too dark in the hallway for me to see anything so I quickly laid him on our bed with a lamp nearby. I realized I was upsetting Andrew, so I calmed down and asked him what he had done. He wouldn't say a word. I got a flashlight and started shining it up his nose and still couldn't see anything. I asked him, "son, have you put something up your nose?" He just nodded. Out came the flashlight again, and this time I caught a glint of something. It was way up there. I immediately thought of tweezers and went straight to the bathroom and brought them in wondering how was I going to do this without hurting him or causing him to jump. I had already figured out the thing was metal, but who knew what or how big? I gently approached him explaining what I was going to do and softly placed them on his upper lip.

Unknown to me, Maria was at the window behind me and saw me wielding the tweezers. "Mamma Mia, My God...... what are you doing?" I explained he had put something up his nose and she threw her apron over her head shouting and wailing like he was dying. It went on and on. Finally, Maria saw the consternation on my face and calmed down, but stayed as an avid audience.

I approached Andrew again and got the tweezers halfway up his nose and then he squirmed. I closed the tweezers hoping I had gotten it, but no luck. Quickly, I dove in for a second try, and Maria started the "My God, my God thing again". Our oldest was flat on his belly on our bed, with his chin in his hands watching the whole thing. His eyes were as big as saucers, but he was calmly taking it all in.

I began for a third try with the wailing going on and to my great relief, Andrew sneezed and out burst a small golden chain from a plastic toy horse. I just sagged with gratefulness. Maria threw the apron over her head again and burst into a flow of Italian that I didn't know.

Eventually, we all calmed down and the boys went back to playing. Needless to say, when my husband came back, our oldest said "Dad, Andrew did something bad while you were gone." Andrew just crawled in his dad's lap and stuck his finger in his nose.