Caught between a rock and a child's nose

At the age of 32, I'm still learning every day. I know more than I did at 16, more than at 21 and a tiny bit more than at 25. I learn how to handle tough situations daily: how to put out fires; how to squash arguments between adults and children alike; and how to get my point across without sounding harsh.

But in all my years, patience is still the one thing that I haven't accomplished.

As a child, I was told you never ask God for patience because he will send you a situation that will test your patience, so you can grow. I've been very careful to never ask this, but still I'm tested daily -- especially by my children. Most recently, by my daughter.

Felicity is a child all her own, different from her brother in every way. She's loud, talkative, nosy, bossy and opinionated. In other words, pretty much me in 3-year-old form. She knows what she wants, and she goes for it. Cooper, on the other hand, is more reserved, interested in how things work. He's energetic, prefers alone time and takes direction. He is his daddy in 7-year-old form.

Because my daughter is her own person, she decided one day at school that to make her friends laugh, she should stick a rock up her nose.

I missed a call from her teacher and got a text on my phone that read, "Emergency, rock." I forwarded it to my husband with a question mark and a "Check this out."

Twenty minutes later I'm on the phone with a frustrated 33-year-old man with tweezers up his daughter's nose. As he's grunting and yelling that it won't come out, I'm across town, terrified he's going to push a rock into my daughters brain out of frustration and sheer will power.

I calmly suggested for him to take her to the emergency room, and he grudgingly told me I was probably right. At this time I called the pediatrician, who said we made the right decision and just to be patient -- my favorite word. Minutes turned to hours and I still had no update. During this time my amazingly patient and wonderful husband was sitting in an emergency room with no TV, no toys, no phone or tablet to entertain our daughter. The first two hours weren't bad, he said, but the next four lasted an eternity.

I'm grateful every day that he was the one to take the call and run to the school. I know that I would not have been able to handle the situation with as much grace as he did. Even when they finally saw a doctor, my husband didn't lose his cool -- even when the doctor told him that he, too, could not get the rock out. I, on the other hand, would have lost it right there, probably in a tantrum of epic proportions, one that would have put anything my kids have done in a toy store to shame.

After six and one-half hours in the emergency room and a night spent with a rock in her head, Felicity became rock free, thanks to a specialist the next day. Max had a story to tell, and I had an overwhelming sense of relief. Come to find out, my husband does pray for patience, and, like I was always told, God gave him a way to practice it.