Under the Whale.

New York's magnificent Natural History Museum does overnight sleepovers, and thanks to Secundus's boy scout membership, we were able to sign up the whole family for the event. It was originally scheduled for February, but one blizzard and two postponements later, it defaulted to the Mother's Day weekend.

Although I was a little disappointed that the exhibits didn't really come to life, like in that movie, it was great fun -- lots of activities for the kids, including a visit to the wondrous butterfly conservatory and a flashlight scavenger hunt through the dimly lit dinosaur galleries. And then we bed down on cots in the Hall of Ocean Life, under the lifesize blue whale, like displaced hurricane victims.

Wisdom and experience has taught me that on these communal sleeping expeditions, your best friends are a set of earplugs. Alas, the best that the drugstore had to offer weren't good enough to shut out the deafening snores of the dad just two cots down from me, and it took a while to fall into a fitful sleep.

Well before the morning wake-up call, I find myself being prodded severely. "You were snoring," hissed the mem-sahib, clambering back to her cot. I pantomime my identification of the true culprit and lie there grumpily till the lights come on, not sure whether I'm more offended by the interruption of my hard-won slumber or the wrongful accusation.

She's lucky it was Mother's Day.