He Did It!

My oldest son, Benjamin, has been working and earning and scrimping and saving for a good six months now.  He's had his eye on his very own iPod touch.

It was a month ago when he finally counted $200 in his savings bank.  I took him and his trusty bank to the Mac Life store near our house...it was then that we learned the iPod Touch version 4 would be announced in a couple of weeks.  Instead of being merely an iPod, the version 4 would also be able to take photos and video, and might have the cool new face-to-face chat technology.

"Well, buddy, you have a choice to make.  You can either buy the version 3 like you've been planning and saving for, and you can have it right now...or you can wait another month to see if version 4 is cooler." (it hadn't been announced yet, so we didn't know for sure what the technology would be in the new version)

"I think I'll wait", he said as he tucked his bank a bit tighter up under his arm.

He was very frustrated and disappointed to not get his new toy right then, but he was even more determined.  To ease the pain a bit, I took him to A&W for cheeseburgers and root beer floats.

And then the new iPod was announced, and it had all the cool features he dreamed of (thank the Lord).

But it cost $29 more.

He had a couple of weeks to earn it before they would actually be available for purchase...so he worked his hiney off.  And then...finally...$229 in that bank.

I picked the kids up from school that day instead of waiting for the bus to drop them off, and we all made the trek to the new Apple store in the mall.

Let me say, the new store is flat out stunningly gorgeous.  It was a combination of all those pretty do-dads and the joy in my boy's face...I couldn't stop smiling and giggling as we walked into the store.  I got some strange "are you high?" looks from people as I giggled my way past them :-)

See?!  Totally giggle-worthy (photo taken from their website - contact me if you'd like me to take it down):

The folks at the store were incredible.  When I explained that we were there to purchase the iPod that Ben had been saving for for so long...a crowd of sales people gathered around to offer high-fives to Ben and to clap.  They made it so special!  In fact, the photo at the top of this post was taken by an employee who said, "Wait!  Let me take a picture of you making your purchase!"  He then emailed it to me using the phone that I'm trying hard not to covet ;-)

(I'm hoping that by not having the money to buy an iPhone or it's monthly service, I'm actually setting myself up to buy a phone with slightly better photo and video quality than is available now.  Yeah...that's it!)

As we left the store, Ben turned to me and said "Mom, our family...we're Mac people aren't we?"

Absolutely, my boy.  Absolutely.