And the winner is......

Adam has always had a fascination with cameras. While the other two children are always more than willing to flash me their cheesiest "CHEESE" grin Adam typically asks, no BEGS if he can take up residence behind the camera.

So for Christmas in 2008 Santa brought him a Polaroid Pixie. And, not really to my surprise, it was an awful camera. Sure, it may have been "kid friendly" but it chewed threw batteries in literally 10 minutes, took blurry, grainy pictures, and half the time it wouldn't even recognize that the SD card was in. In short, it was a complete waste of money.

Of course this didn't prevent Adam from wanting to drag it with him just about anywhere we went. And when he didn't have it he would bemoan "I sure wish I had brought my camera with me."

I assumed that the fascination would wear off eventually. When it didn't I started looking more in earnest for a decent point and shoot that was still kid friendly. I discovered there are actually quite a few rugged cameras out on the market, but all were a little out of my budget for what I typically spend on a child's birthday.

So I did what all good moms would do-I starting watching ebay for used/refurbished cameras. My brother recommended an Olympus 770, which is an archived model that is shockproof, waterproof, and crushproof. He also found a used one on ebay for $100. Still a tad more than I would typically spend on a birthday, but loads cheaper than the new ones I was looking at.

Which is why I got REALLY excited when I found one on the local classifieds and the guy agreed to sell it to me for $80. I did a little happy dance and ran to the bank to get cash.

And then the seller started ignoring me. He wouldn't return my phone calls, text messages or emails. After several failed attempts to coordinate a pick up location I gave up, finding myself back at square 1. No camera, and a birthday fast approaching.

So I started looking at new again, telling myself if I swallowed the high price it would be an investment that would survive all 3 kids for years to come.

So now I had to make a decision. After much research I narrowed it down to four rugged camera choices:

The Olympus Stylus Tough 3000

The Canon Powershot D10

The Pentax Optio W80

The Panasonic Luminx DMC-TS2

And after much study came to one conclusion: Camera makers come up with the worst names for their camera models! Why can't they just call it "Canon Tough Camera 1" and then next year's model can be "Canon Tough Camera 2" and so on. But hey, what do I know?

The one conclusion I didn't come to was which camera to actually buy. There were so many variables. Price, picture quality, video quality, manual setting options, not to mention how rugged they ACTUALLY turned out to be in the hands of real users and not just in a test lab setting.

I poured over reviews and opinions for days and days finding myself right smack in the middle of analysis paralysis when my brother-in-law brought my attention to the day's woot. A teal Kodak C180 10.2 MP camera for $50. And at that price I forgot all about ruggedness and decided to buy the cheap camera and with what was left over get him a neck strap! I know, I'm a sell out. But at least now I can afford to give him a little birthday cake with his camera.