Kids love animals. My children are fortunate to live in a family that has two dogs and four hermit crabs. We have also temporarily cared for a variety of lizards, snakes, frogs, caterpillars, and such. We are definitely animal-friendly at our house.

And yet my kids want more. They continually ask for more pets of different kinds. Birds, lizards, fish, mice, anything. Instead of being content with our current critters, my children yearn for more.

So my 4-year-old is missing his entire last week of school due to illness. This is sad for multiple reasons. (1) I hate for him not to feel well. (2) It was going to be a fun week and he missed it. (3) It was my last couple of days before summer break and I had plans.

Okay, moms, here comes our big day... Mother's Day! When my kids were younger I would be filled with anticipation of what this wonderful day would hold. I had such high expectations for my special day. I'm not sure what exactly I wanted to happen, but it should probably resemble a Hallmark commercial or a sappy made for tv movie. No pressure there... for my kids, my husband, or myself!

Yesterday afternoon my boys were playing together with little plastic army men. The trouble was that my 7-year-old was not playing very nicely or fairly with his little brother, which did not make my little guy too happy, to say the least.

There is an ongoing competition in town. Every month the first-graders in my son's class compete to see who can read the most books. They record the books/chapters they read on reading logs. At the end of the month, the child who has read the most books/chapters wins a prize – usually a fun magazine - from the teacher.

Like many moms, I set limits for the amount of screen time my kids can have each day. My current standard is 30 minutes of computer or video game time per school day, with a bit more allowed on weekends.

It seems to be birthday party season around our family right now. Our children had three birthday party invitations for this weekend alone, plus our youngest turned 4 on Friday. That makes for a lot of celebrating, gift-giving, and cake-eating.

This past weekend our family headed to George L. Smith State Park, near Metter, with hopes of canoeing in the lake there. The trouble with a family of five, with young kids, is that we don't exactly fit into canoes very well. The rental canoes at the park carry no more than two people each. So with three kids unable to handle a canoe and only two adults, we selected one canoe and one john boat, and off we went.

How do you handle all of your kid's toys and trinkets? My children tend to be on the pack rat end of the spectrum. They love their stuff. When asked if we can get rid of something, they immediately protest. They will cite the importance of that particular piece of plastic based on its connection to their preschool teacher, for example.

So I have a dilemma. As more stuff comes into our home, other stuff must move out. Do I make the kids decide what to pass on to others or do I decide while they are not home?

My 3-year-old has 18 more mornings of preschool left before summer break begins, and that has me counting. I was inspired by a book review I read about a book called 20,000 Days and Counting by Robert D. Smith. No, I haven't yet read the actual book, but I like the idea of counting our days in order to make the most of them.