Over the Christmas break our friends entrusted us with their baby turtles while they went on vacation.

We had so much fun taking care of the turtles that it got me thinking about looking for a more permanent pet.

It has been almost a year since our bunny, Lisa, escaped to freedom in the greenbelt behind our home. I felt ready to step into the realm of pets once again.

I had learned a good lesson with the bunny, which was that the experience was exactly as people said it would be. She was adorable gnawing on my kitchen scraps, but she also chewed away the wood on the back porch, and I gagged every time I had to clean out the droppings in her cage.

I'm allergic to cats, and toyed briefly with the idea of a dog, but friends assured me that I'd just as rather have a fourth child. Pygmy goats have enticed me for the longest time (I could milk it to make my own feta!), but I checked the bylaws of our homeowners association, and goats are not on the approved list of pets.

However, watching the turtles helped me see pets in an entirely new way. I hadn't realized how fabulous amphibians were as house pets: They stayed contained, their poop (at least at this age) was relatively small, and they didn't eat much or rub up again my leg or leave hair on the couch.

This seemed to be a nice fit for our family. We're not the cuddly type, and the turtles, who tried to wriggle out of our hands every time we held them, seemed happy with that arrangement.

But before we made any big decisions, I wanted to go about it the right way, by consulting the kids.

“If you could pick any pet for our family, what would it be?” I asked the boys one night over dinner.

“A rhinoceros,” said Jackson, 5.

“A baby Tyrannosaurus Rex, or perhaps a sweet kitten,” suggested 4-year-old Addison.

I could tell we were all on the same page, so I went to the Internet to research various pets. There were good suggestions at the Humane Society of the United States (hsus.org), which has a list of ideas to consider when looking for a pet. I hadn't known until reading their information on turtles that children need to wash their hands thoroughly after handling them because they can carry Salmonella. I also found thorough information on hundreds of pets at petcaretips.com.

After learning all that I could online, it was time to go pet hunting. I stepped, for the first time, into the realm of PetSmart, the Wal-Mart of pet stores. Before going, I promised myself not to make any rash decisions. I have a friend who bought a hamster and cage there, drove halfway home, and realized that she really, really didn't want to have a hamster in her house.

My kids loved the entire wall dedicated to fish, and we perused the birds, gerbils, and ferrets, but it turns out PetSmart is more of an accessories store. You can construct a Taj Mahal for your cat in there, but they didn't have a single snake on display.

Then my turtle friends, who are real experts on all things amphibian, directed me to Herpeton, an exotic reptile store on South Lamar. I took the kids on a rainy day, and it was almost as good as visiting the zoo. The walls were lined with box turtles, bunnies, all types of lizards, tortoises, snakes, frogs, and an impressive Asian Water Monitor.

Near the back was a large glassed-in area filled with the largest boa constrictors I've ever seen in my life. A sign enticed us to feed them a rat if we were willing to pay four bucks. Jackson really wanted to try it, but I just wasn't ready for the trauma involved in watching a snake unhinge its jaws and eat something that would hang around in its gullet for a few hours.

Besides the collection, I was impressed with the service. A guy who introduced himself as Adam approached me and led me around the store, showing me the more popular pets for children.

He raved about the bearded dragon, a smallish lizard, as one of the best pets for children. “They're highly sociable and friendly,” he said. The lizard eats crickets, which you can catch in the wild or buy from the store. He also said the baby ball python is a popular pet for children, although you have to keep in mind that it grows to 5½ feet long.

Since the only pet we've ever had came to us by way of a friend, I was surprised how much money those little critters can cost. You can spend $20 on a turtle, or plunk down more than $100 for a snake or tortoise. The tortoises however live anywhere from 50 to 150 years, so you're not just buying a pet: You're investing in an heirloom.

I went away excited but overwhelmed by the possibilities. I imagined an entire wall of my house dedicated to exotic pets, with boas hanging from the free-standing lamp and bearded dragons greeting me cheerfully each morning. We could keep giant tortoises in the backyard and stock the pond with frogs and fish. I was amazed at the scope of pet ideas outside the standard dog and cat.

I consulted my neighbor, who insisted that rats, although they get a bad rap, actually make clean, well-behaved pets. I visited another friend who brought out her dwarf white hamster in a hamster ball designed to look like Cinderella's carriage. For that accessory alone I almost ran to get one for myself.

Then, in a moment of lucid thinking, I remembered all the garage sales I've been to where parents are trying to pawn off a giant lizard or snake that's escaped one too many times. I thought of the hours I alone would spend mucking out the tanks while my children watched Disney movies in the next room.

As much as I loved the idea of a house filled with frogs, goats, and a chicken or two, my kids are still so young. I was the one pushing this pet business from the beginning. Until they begged, pleaded, and wrote a contract in blood promising to take care of the creatures all by themselves, was it really worth the effort?

In the end I did, for probably the first time in my life, the simplest, most expendable thing: I bought a glass bowl and a lovely scarlet Beta fighting fish. I looked that fish square in the eye and said, “We know a thing or two about fighting in our house, so you had better shape up.”

The fish paused to absorb my words, then gave me a flit of its long, diaphanous tail. I could tell we were going to get along just fine.

This article originally appeared in the Austin American-Statesman , and is used here by permission.