We recently purchased a new cellular phone for our eight-year-old son. The phone allows him to make or receive calls only from a defined list of telephone numbers, which we enter into it, and provides emergency 911 access. A few months ago, a friend of his from school came over and she had a new LG Migo "kid-friendly" cellular phone from Verizon Wireless. Once we saw the LG Migo, we knew we'd be getting him a cellular phone long before we had initially planned. While the Migo is a neat device, we ended up going with the Firefly, which uses Cingular's network.

The Firefly can be used as a pre-paid device, or you can subscribe to a monthly service plan. As with nearly all pre-paid services, the per minute rates are a little outrageous ($.25/min.), but since we anticipate minimal usage, we should be alright for the immediate future. The fact of the matter is this was an impulse purchase, and we may eventually change to the LG Migo and Verizon Wireless anyway.