Clover.

Unless you live in a rain forest you're not going to find "carefree moss."

I'd suggest gravel. Doesn't need watering, doesn't look half-bad, plus it's a great way to teach your one-year-old good balance.

Heather, maybe. Or some kind of fast-growing thyme... smells good when you walk on it.

If your front yard isn't that big you could brick over it and make an entry courtyard with space for just flowers and bushes. Your only major maintenance would be hosing it off every now and then.

Edit:
Well, I am pretty low maintenance... you have to like bees though.

Do the opposite of everything listed on this page...

And if you install astroturf, you could put a big mini-golf course out there! Your son will be the most popular kid in school in a few more years.

So you are done looking like a redneck?

Keep in mind with growing anything other than grass, you'll have to be careful it doesn't spread into neighboring lawns. Folks that have grass really don't appreciate other things growing on their lawns, generally.

On that note, I suggest crab grass and dandelions.

St. Augustine grass is a lot easier to "let go" longer than your typical suburban Bermuda/Fescue type grass. And I think it feels a whole lot better. Plus, you can use a blade to make a funny-sounding whistle between your thumbs.

I think I'll end up going with clover for main patches. Depending on where we buy and the type of lot, I'd really like to have a vegetable garden as well.

I've been spending alot of time at my father-in-law's house this summer with my two kids. The lawn here is almost entirely low-maintenance clover. In a total of 6 days my son's been stung by bees twice. Based on this small experiment I don't recommend clover lawns if you have kids that enjoy playing outside.

My wife and I did a big landscaping project at our house and replaced a large section of the lawn. Rather than try to keep the kids off the hydroseed and freak out about them damaging the lawn before it had a chance to establish we sucked it up and paid for sod. Kids can still play on it (assuming they're not doing full contact football in rainy weather) and it's nice having instant grass. Downside is that it's the complete opposite of clover - very high maintenance since the investment is big enough that you don't want to let it go. There's nothing quite like bare feet on a thick grass lawn though...*almost* makes the effort worth it.

You'll have that problem with a lot of non-traditional lawns, or landscaping with a lot of flowers... bugs love it. Sucks that grass lawns are so much work- not even just mowing, but all the fertilizing, thatching, aerating and whatnot too.

Maybe courtyard with some patches of grass if you don't want to completely miss out on the kids/lawns fun? If you live on a hill or have a big stereotypical suburban front yard that might not work though.

My lawn is mainly crabgrass, clover, and wild strawberry. With some tall fescue thrown in for good measure. Not low maintenance because all those weeds grow tall pretty quickly.

My father attempted a Bermuda lawn. It's kinda low-maintenance (especially when it goes dormant). The problem is that it's really regional, picky about conditions, and turns a nice ugly shade of brown 8 months out of the year.

If your allergies are specific to grass probably not, since clover generates more nectar and less free-floating pollen. But if it's more the garden-variety grass/trees/green stuff type, you might be better off with the gravel and crabgrass.

When I had our house built, our first sprayed in lawn came up like crap. They must have used really cheap seed; lots of weeds. Then my wife got the bright idea to use cow manure to 'fertilize' the lawn. Cow crap has tons of extraneous seeds in it. Consequently, the lawn looked even worse. We broke down and called a professional lawn service. (Chem-Lawn, I believe) After a year, the yard looked great! Real, green grass. Yes, I have to cut it once a week, less in the hot summer. But it looks great. And after a couple of years, the lawn is in good shape and I didn't need the service any longer.

Come to the green side. Get a REAL lawn.

To control broadleaf weeds, it helps to invest in a $15 sprayer and a $10 bottle of a a selective herbicide, as it is called. 32 fl oz bottle will last, like, forever. Walk around the lawn twice per supper, and spray spots with crabgrass, clover, dandelions, plantain, maple saplings etc.

Scott's "4-Step Program" fertilizer/bug/weed control mix works great too, but I find that it's better under-apply Step 3 and finish off the weeds with these sprayings of a selective herbicide, rather than rislking to overfeed and "burn" the lawn by over-applying it.

Or for like, 4$ a week you can bribe some neighbor kid to do it for you.