How a camera phone could save you thousands (in therapy)

When we had our second child we were stricken with second child guilt in all the familiar places. No, our number two doesn't have a baby book, I have no clue how old he was when he rolled over, I'm even a little shaky on what his first word was. There's no video of his first steps, um, there may be no video of him at all.

He ate candy before his first birthday, I nursed him 4 months less than I nursed number one...in fact perhaps the only thing I may have done right with number two was getting a new cell phone.

That doesn't sound right, but for my birthday I received a new Motorola KRZR K1 Phone with a 2 megapixel camera and it has made all the difference between the great likelihood that my second child's toddlerhood would go completely unrecorded and feeling a little bit guilty that I may now take more pictures of him than my older child.

It's true, I don't talk on the phone much so spending a lot of money on a fancy cell phone seemed a little counterintuitive, but I do carry my cell phone in my bag almost all the time and that means that I now have a camera with me at all times. I no longer ever curse myself for forgetting the camera on a family outing and I can grab a picture any time the impulse hits me. Every cute moment can be captured with a flip of the phone. (Another bonus has been that whenever I'm bored, waiting around at a kid party or baseball game, I can pull out the phone and start snapping pictures.)

I have been very pleased with the quality of the photos when printed out. For the most part the photos are on par with what I got from my older 3 megapixel compact digital camera. The only place where it disappoints is in low light. It does not do nearly as well as a conventional camera in low light conditions, but let's face it, if I didn't have my phone there wouldn't be any photos at all, even in good light.

The phones cost about $300, which is about what you'd spend on that camera that you'd forget to bring with you. And you get a really cool phone to boot. But, I think you can get the Motorola KRZR K1 Phone or the Sony Ericsson W810i Phone from Amazon and it's free or you even get money back on the rebate if you sign up for a new phone plan too.

Having enough photos to appease the guilt of second child...priceless.