Zip It

A couple days ago Jake was getting ready for school and told me he was having problems getting his coat zipped. For some reason it wasn't catching at the bottom. I managed to get it to work, but told him he would have to be careful and not pull it up too fast.

When he got home that afternoon he said the zipper was broken. "It just flew off!" I can only imagine how fast and hard he was tugging on it to get said "flying action" but whatever. It was the liner for his winter jacket and luckily the outer shell is actually quite warm so I wasn't too worried.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. The kids get ready for the bus at 8:00am. The bus arrives at 8:10am. At 8:03am Jake informed me that his zipper wasn't working again; it broke in Grandpa's car last night. I thought he was pulling out the first broken jacket, but soon realized he meant his outer liner - the ONLY jacket he has left. He kept telling me he had the zipper, but I couldn't find it attached to make it work and when I told him this he said, "But mom...it's in my pocket." Sure enough, there's the zipper. Not doing much good detached and currently sitting in my hand.

So I told him we would just have to velcro it shut and he'd have to make sure it stayed shut. He thought that was a great idea - until we realized one of the two velcro pieces had also fallen off. It was probably 8:06 by now and I just velcroed the bottom piece and snapped the top of the collar. Nothing in the middle was keeping this jacket together. I expected a call from his teacher to remind me we live in Minnesota and he should be more prepared for the weather.

But, we did make it to the bus stop on time and as he was getting on the bus he casually mentioned, "Maybe when you shop for a new jacket for me it could have some orange on it this time?"

So I shopped at five different stores and finally found one that fit the bill. Only when I got home it was about two sizes too big. He was drowning in it. Over dinner we were discussing further shopping options and he started to tell us how he couldn't believe how the zipper flew off. Then he said,

"All I did was open it up..." accompanied by the gesture of Clark Kent ripping open his shirt to become Superman.

I guess we now know how the zipper ended up just "flying off".

I did find a jacket last night after choir. Not exactly the style I wanted (I prefer to have two layers...no spring coat to buy) but it has at least a little orange strip....

This excitement over having his most favorite of all colors (and an INSIDE POCKET!) only makes me wonder if he didn't make those zippers "fly off" accidentally-on-purpose.