The top item on my daughter's Christmas list this year was a Palm. We thought we could satisfy her with a cheap PDA that had a stylus and a touch screen. She didn't buy it. So, she gathered all of the money that she had earned all year and we combined it with the money we got from returning the non-Palm and we went shopping for a real Palm device.

In our shopping we found a last item Kodak digital camera on clearance for $80. It was still in the box and had never been opened. I simply said, you could get this digital camera for the same price. Then I went on walking. She screamed, "You mean I could get my own digital camera?"

"Don't you want a Palm more?" She looked at me like I thought she was stupid. "Why would I want a Palm more than a camera? I didn't know I could get a digital camera. I thought they were too expensive."

After calling Mom and getting the OK from her, we all thought that an 8-year-old would get more good out of a digital camera than she would a Palm.

So, we bought her the Kodak C433 and we were on our way. After going through three sets of batteries the first day, I went out and bought her some rechargeables. I had an old 128MB SD card and it holds 170+ pictures.

I had to make a rule that she has to fill the card before I will download the pictures to the computer. She has completely filled the card three times over the past 24 hours.

Even with the cost of the camera and the cost of the rechargeable batteries - I will use my wife's math that not spending as much as you could have is the same as saving money. It does appear that after she has taken over 300 pictures we have saved $125 in developing and film costs. Then I figure that we would have thrown away 75% of the pictures that she has taken.

I have posted her pictures here [1] . The first thing my wife and I noticed was that we are able to see the world from her perspective. It's kind of fun. 

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