Happy Birthday to the Original Magnolia Son

Twenty two years ago I was given a second chance at parenting.  Josh had survived the first go around and now it was Christian’s turn to give me a chance to make right all the hiccups and mistakes that a first time parent make with their firstborn.  His role as the second child in the Andreacchio family was to be quiet, laid back and pretty self sufficient as an infant.  I was just starting nursing school and working, Todd was working two jobs and Josh was a pretty typical two year old getting into everything.  But Christian was having none of it.  He entered the world screaming and demanding attention.  From staying up all night just because, to colic filled nights of rocking him – bouncing him on my knee while holding a nursing book studying at 1 AM….. Christian demanded to be heard.  When he was three I sent him to time out in his room. An hour later I went to his room to tell him how good he had been.  What I discovered was he hadn’t been that good.  He had kicked the screen out of his window and climbed out the window and was happily swinging on the swingset, not a care in the world.

It was then that I realized this second round of parenting

wasn’t going as planned.  

And then the School Years began.  It’s not a secret Christian saw no point in school except for recess, playground football, flirting and the occasional fight.  Trying to be the “good parent” I volunteered for transportation to field trips but quickly realized that whoever made the car assignments must have thought that I had some type of special skills since I was a psych nurse because they would shove 6 or 7 of the rowdiest boys (including Christian) in the class in my Yukon EVERY time.  Which meant you were also responsible for keeping up with those same boys when out of the vehicle and at the field trip site.  So I grew quite fond of telling William to sit down, Kaleb to put his head back in the car, Spencer to stay with the group, Will and Christian to quit wrestling in the car and “Yes, John we will be there soon”.  I knew it was bad when the transportation chairperson would call and ask “How many seat belts do you have in your car?”  After a few field trips I seriously considered trading for a mini cooper. But Christian wanted me to go so I hung in there. 

It wasn’t until Middle School that the phone calls began.  There was the phone call from Coach Key who said “Rae don’t be alarmed.  I don’t think Christian was going to blow the school up but he did have a “How to Make a Bomb” book at school”.  Looking back now I realize it was Christian already displaying a desire to understand the mechanics behind how things work.  At the time though it was “Oh my god my kid is going to be a unibomber!!”  But somehow we all survived without an explosion.  Then there were the fights in the locker room, the call from a teacher at PA after Christian gave her son a black eye,(which was really Christian’s way of getting back to Lamar) and the phone calls from poor Coach Key doing his best to pull Christian through middle school.

And through it all, Christian laid back, unworried,

little boy charming…….  smiling.

Christian had a way of getting what he wanted one way or the other so when he decided he wanted to go to Northeast for high school he again forced the issue and won the battle of the wills.  And for the first time Christian made A’s and B’s.  He thought it was great – I thought it was a bad sign.  After a conference with the counselor, the principal and the asst. superintendent Christian was placed in advanced classes. (I know, right!) Through my ranting and raving Christian just smiled and shrugged his shoulders and said “Mom you are just going to make them mad and they are going to give me hell.”  Well…… Christian may have been right.  Even his friends would say “Man, you just don’t know how much the Lit teacher HATES Chrsitian.”  Well I kinda did since we  received a 50 on a very well written letter from Romeo to Juliet.  Christian never let me live that grade down.  He was always telling people how his mother “wanted to go argue with the Literature teacher over the grade we got on some Romeo letter”.  He lasted in advanced classes one year and then in 10th grade went back to “regular classes”.

And of course there were the phone calls…. Christian and Taylor Martin and Company deciding to have a cook out and pool party at someone’s house while they were on vacation, a couple calls from the sheriff’s department and one call from the Game Warden that I avoided for weeks until I found out that all they wanted was a donation.  They assured me if I donated they would keep an eye out for Christian.  I made a donation out of relief that Christian wasn’t out spot lighting or something game warden related. And then there was the infamous almost felony spray paint incident.  That one took a little more time to get over.  But while the three or four other people involved were busy pointing fingers at Christian, Christian never said a word against them. Loyal to people who did not deserve loyalty.  Showing a character trait rarely seen at that age.  The incident itself not one of his finer moments but he shared these words of wisdom with me that looking back now were very true

“Mom sometimes a punk has got to get punked in order to show

him his place in the world.”

Years later I consider it some of the best money I ever spent.

Christian’s Sr. year I realized Christian wasn’t going to school.  When I asked him about it he didn’t lie or make excuses.  He said “I’m tired of school.  I know you want me to go to college.  I can go and party and waste your money for a semester or I can get my GED and get a job.”  We opted for Christian’s plan.  And even though I don’t think he ever believed me, I was just as proud of him for having the maturity and self awareness for knowing what he wanted to do as I would have had if he had gone to college.  It took him almost a year but his persistence paid off and he was hired at Magnolia Marine when he was 18 years old.

But don’t think the phone calls stopped.  Oh, no.. they just started coming from him instead of parents, teachers and law enforcement.  There was the call from the beach when his foot/ankle was run over by Zac’s SUV on the Mobile Bridge in bumper to bumper traffic.  I think Christian was out socializing with the other stuck motorists and felt it his job to keep everyone on the bridge entertained.  There was the call from the boat when he wanted to know if he could take a turkey baster needle and pull the fluid off his knee, the call telling me some man on the dock in Chicago had “cut him” and did I think it was OK to just super glue the gaping wound closed, the near drowning incident, and lets not forget the phone call of “Hi Mom I think I may have broke my hand.”  Me: “How?”  Christian: “Some 30 year old man thought he was going to treat me like a punk so I had to show him.  The captain made him get off the boat and said it wasn’t my fault so I’m good.”

I would never lie and say that Christian was perfect.  But I think it was his imperfections that made him so endearing to me and others.  When I was talking with Paul about the Magnolia Son website he asked me to describe Christian to him.  Some of the words used were “wild, a fighter, loyal, always up for fun, always smiling, antagonizer, hard worker” and I told Paul “Now he wasn’t perfect but….” and I paused and Paul said “you admired his spirit”.   And I turned to Paul and said…..

“He was everything I always wanted to be but could have never been.”

To say we miss him would be such a small word to describe such a large emotion.  To say we love him seems petty and overused; equating how we feel to how we describe a movie or book we have read.  So I think as a family our hearts are painfully full of emotion and collectively our family’s soul is lost without its fifth member here with us…..

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY Christian Shane Andreacchio!!!  It has been a wonderfully challenging journey with you over the past 22 years.  Look down for the lanterns shining for you.  Don’t think you are getting out of a party!!!

MOM