Safety First!

Grandma Kwon came down Saturday and we took the kids to the Dogwood Festival. We skipped the parade but made it to the fairground with all the rides. Chris bought a sheet of tickets and we set off to find which rides among the rather dusty and rickety collection looked suitable for Jonathan.

Right away, there was an obvious split. One category was "Totally fascinating but absolutely NOT!" Jonathan loved to watch these. The swings that go up in the air and whirl around, the cages that flip and spin, the mini roller-coaster - he pulled on our arms and asked "Dat one? Dat one?" The other category seemed to all follow a simple form. Take a metal plate. Put some form of vehicle on the plate: boat, car, truck, motorcycle, elephant. Place kids in vehicle. Rotate plate and repeat.

One of the rides had a car theme, and sported both a red AND a blue fire engine. These weren't getting much play, so Jonathan had his choice. His first ride was in the red fire engine. He grappled with three steering wheels, two buttons to make the bell ring, and another set of steering wheels in the seats behind him. He had a great time. We picked him up at the end and went to find some funnel cake. Chris stood next to Jonathan as he rode the carousel. We still had a few more tickets to use up, so we asked Jonathan what he wanted to ride next.

After vetoing the motorcycles, we suggested another spin on the carousel - it was right there and had no line. Jonathan said, quite distinctly, "I don't like the horsie, Mommy! I want the BLUE firetruck!" So back down the hill we went.

This time, Jonathan selected the blue fire engine. There was only one other kid on the whole ride, so he spread out across the front bench of the fire engine. The seatbelt was meant to accomodate all three spaces at once and fastened with a plastic clip. Still, the ride only wheezed along at two miles an hour, so we buckled Jonathan in and waited to take some pictures.

Once again, he was steering and honking and staying quite busy. All of a sudden, though, the belt popped open. Jonathan immediately looked down and started grabbing each end. The ride operator stopped the ride and walked over to him, saying "Okay, little buddy, let's get that fixed!" But he stopped and laughed when he got there, because Jonathan had already clipped himself back in. The guy made his way back to the start button, but Jonathan had decided the ride must be over and started to get out - so the ride started and stopped again. Once again Jonathan righted himself before help arrived. The belt popped open twice more and Jonathan was on it both times right away.

We gave away the last few tickets.