We highly recommend using granite or quartz for countertops, especially considering your situation. You may want to opt for a light color granite to still have the natural look. Quartz looks great, but will look like quartz. It is the easiest to maintain.

Quartz:

Granite:

We love our Silestone (Quartz) counter tops. Most of the new homes around here are installing it.

We love out quartz counter tops too.

Was on the same boat with our kitchen. With kids around, we decided to go with quartz (Caesarstone) for countertops and used honed marble tiles for backsplash. No regrets.

Go with a natural material like granite, which is harder and less porous that marble. Most of the man made products, including quartz, are so monolithic and homogeneous. Unless your pallet is very plain and white, and regular, i would stay away from man-made countertops, unless you like uniform countertops, and then there are some fantastic man-made materials with this look. Paperstone, quartz, Corian, etc.