Lola's New Purchase

Lola has been saving her money since last fall with the intention of someday purchasing her own laptop computer. With cash gleaned from the Tooth Fairy, Christmas monetary gifts and her weekly allowance she had saved almost $250.00. The Laptop Fund was still growing when one day last week as we were wandering through the aisles of Costco she said, “Mom, I decided I don’t want a laptop. I want an iPod.”

I said, “You have an iPod - - the MP3 you got for your birthday last year.”

“No, I want one that plays video, too.” She pointed to the rack with the brightly colored Apple iPod display. “Like those. I want an Apple iPod.”

I thought about it and told her I’d help her research the best price for what she is looking for. We checked the price at Costco, then I checked the price at Apple to get a baseline as to what the normal price was, then looked online at the different stores’ prices. Lola decided she didn’t want to mail-order it over the internet, but instead she wanted to take her money to the store and quite literally make the purchase herself.

Last Friday I was talking with my boss about electronic devices and I remembered that Lola was enormously mesmerized by the iPhone that had recently come out. She was most enamored by the fact it could play music, store games, show video, surf the net and make calls. I also remembered that the iPod Touch was just like the iPhone, but minus the phone part. From my research talking to others and checking online, it seemed that perhaps Lola would be most satisfied with this device. That evening I asked her if she still liked the iPhone. Her response was, “Well, Duhhhhh,” with a huge laugh. I told her about the iPod Touch that has all but the phone and she was nearly drooling. “Oh, MOM!!! Can we go get one NOW???” She ran upstairs and brought her money down to re-count it. I reminded her of the 7% tax here in the state of Georgia and she immediately got pencil and paper and figured out how much she would have to add to the cost of the iPod to get the total cost. Once figured, she counted out that much rounded up to the nearest dollar and off we went to Costco (which seemed to be the best deal around).

Once we got the iPod home and charged up/registered and set up on iTunes, I found that this is a pretty amazing little thing! Games can be added to it from the website, many of which are free. She has accessed YouTube to bookmark some of her favorite Russian music videos. Later when we have some time on the weekend I’ll upload some songs for her on it. We can store photos and movies and all kinds of things on this device. She absolutely loves it and understands very well that it is not to ever leave the house unless we are on a weekend trip or vacation. I am actually so impressed with it now I want one, too!!! I told Lola I will do the same as she did and save up my spare change and create Mama’s iPod Fund!