One of the first things people usually ask me when they find out that I have a daughter, is whether or not she likes gadgets as much as I do. For the longest time I had to answer “not really.”

I would actually squinch my nose up a little bit when I said that…as if the statement itself was slightly painful. And it was!

Not because I necessarily wanted her to look to me every time there was a new doo-dad on the market that she wanted, but because I wanted her to be a part of – and maybe have a better understanding of – something that I enjoy so much.

For years she resisted when I would say, “don’t you want to try this phone?” or “wouldn’t you like an MP3 player like that one?” or “how about if we upgrade your laptop?” She would look at me like I was nuts, tell me what she had was fine, and then go on complaining about her “dumb” phone or her “slow” laptop when it would inevitably start acting up or fail.

I would roll my eyes and go about my business.

I suppose that I have looked at her refusals to try new things or to upgrade as her way of being her own person, and I have actually been kind of proud that she stood firm, because let’s face it – she could have just as easily been one of those spoiled kids who expects the latest gadgets and who expects her gadgety mom to provide them, but that’s never been Sarah’s way.

Here’s the thing: When forced to upgrade, she will almost always agree that the newer device is better. It’s just getting her to the point where she will even consider the upgrade that can be tricky, because if anything, Sarah is an independent thinker and an outspoken one at that. Which brings me to this week…

I got the MacBook Pro, which in my rank newbieness I have somehow managed to get set up exactly as I want (huge sense of accomplishment!), which left a forlorn looking Toshiba X205 sitting to the side. I considered selling it for half a second, but then Jerry suggested a better use: he said I should offer it to Sarah. I told him the chances of her taking it were slim to none, which I firmly believed at the time. In fact, I told him that the only way I thought she would get a new laptop would be if she accidentally stepped on hers, like that would ever happen.

You see, Sarah has an aging Dell Inspiron (named “Squee”), which she has shown absolutely no interest in upgrading. Requests as to whether she might like something faster have been met with incredulous stares and much eye-rolling…until I asked if she would like to use the X205.

Immediate answer? YES.

To say that I was surprised would be putting it mildly, but I can’t say that I blame her. The X205′s 17″ screen is gorgeous, the Harmon Kardon subwoofer speaker system is rocking, and the red and black tiger-striped lid is right up her alley. That was a few days ago, and I was already getting the warm fuzzies every time she would say “I love my new laptop,” or “this laptop is awesome.”

She even arranged Squee’s sale to a friend, something I never thought would happen.

Which brings us to yesterday, when Sarah dropped her nearly new Nokia 6555 flip-phone in the toilet at school…!

Don’t laugh, she says it just fell out of her pocket when she was leaning over to flush. (Sorry if that’s TMI )

This might not have been that big of a deal, but she had just gotten used to the 6555 after I had forced her to “upgrade” from her old Sprint Samsung phone when we switched to AT&T a few weeks ago. Sarah had finally told me that she was starting to like the Nokia…and then she essentially killed it.

We tried letting it dry overnight, which did at least revive the formerly blank display, but we couldn’t get the phone to show any signal bars or to charge. The only other phone I had available, that wasn’t already promised in a contest, was my “Blogger Program” Nokia N95.

I had shown her that device before, and her exact words were “it’s too fat, yuck.” I had tried selling her on its multimedia features, but she wasn’t having any of it.

But today, after much griping and moaning about how she only wanted a clamshell, and could “we please just go buy a new flip-phone with [her] money?!” I got her to give the N95 a chance by saying she only had to use it for a day or so.

I showed her how to move her 6555 contacts to the SIM card, and then we were able to transfer them directly to the N95′s contact list – something that she had never been able to do before with a CDMA phone.

After playing with the N95 for a few minutes, she said she might be happy with it.

After using it for a few hours, she told me she might like to keep using it.

Sarah’s still trying to act like using the N95 is no big deal to her, but she also just asked for my 8GB microSD to take advantage of the phone’s 5 megapixel camera.

I handed it over and didn’t say a word…

I win!