All kids at one point or another are sure to be somewhat attracted to kiddie rides of all kinds. Ryan loves them too but fortunately for us, he doesn’t enjoy the ride when we insert coins into them. He would instruct us NOT to put in coins, he just wants to sit in it and turn the steering wheels and press on those brightly lit buttons in the kiddie rides.
Whilst that saves us money, we somehow can’t help but think that parents who walk past us and see us not inserting any coins to let Ryan enjoy his ride must think that we are so stingy! I guess we just have to be thick faced and be okay with that perception of us! 
Anyway, I’m writing this post to serve a reminder to parents. Something untoward happened to Ryan while he was on one of these kiddie rides in 1 Utama’s top floor at the new wing last night.
As usual we sat him into his chosen kiddie ride and he was turning the steering wheel and pressing the buttons…it was also our fault for not watching him closely and assumed that everything was alright. There was one particular button on that ride where the cap of the button had come off, so it was exposing the little bulb sitting inside it.
Ryan touched it and he immediately told us that his finger was very painful. He got burned by that heated bulb on the tip of his index finger! The bulb was so hot that his finger immediately developed quite a big blister. And his finger was quite red in colour for a long time. It all happened so quickly, we didn’t even see his little finger touch it. I felt awful as a mum for being so careless and letting him get hurt like that.
When we led him away from those rides, we tried to distract him of the pain and his fears of those rides. It was so painful for us to watch him in shock and pain. We tried to cheer him up by distracting him with the colourful cartoon game showing on the LCD TV at the Parkson toy department and shoving him in the direction of toys we think he’d like. He was alright all the time, not a single tear at all, but he kept his little blistered finger pointing out all the time, right until we got into the car to go home! My poor little boy.
Not only did he physically get hurt from this incident, he’s also quite skeptical to get onto a kiddie ride now. Maybe the memory of the painful burn is still very fresh in his memory and that’s why he doesn’t want to get on them now, but I really hope this episode does not make him stay away from these rides. He’s still a kid after all and deserves to enjoy himself on them.
So parents, when you put your children into these rides, watch out for those buttons and make sure your kids don’t get burnt. It’s not fair that they get scared and therefore stay away from things they like just because they got hurt by some faulty machine. And from our carelessness, too. Also, being burnt may not have been the worst that could have happen. Who knows whether there’s any passing current in those electrical parts too. I shudder to think of the worst case scenario…
