I should know by now, life with Neko does not go as planned.

My plan was to get up, grab breakfast, and go to the Natural History Museum. Which, I think, would have been a perfect plan.

However, Neko's plan involved ice skating at Rockefeller Center first thing in the morning, which I had originally slated for Monday. The key to a short wait is to go early. It begins at 8:30am, which I assumed would be no problem to achieve, since Neko regularly wakes up at 6am at our house. Fine…quick skating, then off to the museum!

Well, we woke up at 8:15am. This is unheard of. And it meant we threw on clothes and sped off to Rockefeller in record time. When we arrived the first round of skaters was already on the ice. Neko insisted we stay, and we did indeed make it on the ice by 9:15am, but were back off by 9:45am at her request. I think we're spoiled by the conditions at our local rink, which is meticulously groomed. The ice was choppy and the rink was small, but Neko was delirious that we were really doing it, right next to that fantastic tree.

Great! Time for the museum! Not quite. I won't go into it but…ugh…earmuffs. There goes another hour and a half. (But we did get to pass by the Saks window, which had a great display based on their A Flake Like Mike book.)

Finally, we arrived at the museum. And I was right—that was the perfect outing. We clocked in at over five hours, and I'm not sure we saw even half of what was there.

Our first stop was the lizard and snake exhibit, which, omigosh, was perfect for my lizard-loving child. We spent a long time watching the burmese python, which was quite happy and content with Neko watching it, but when two other rowdy kids came over, it was not pleased. I have omitted the photo of its reaction on behalf of my snake-timid friends, but if you'd like to see it, click here.

Then we stumbled on the children's Discovery Room, which was nearly empty. I nearly burst when I discovered the life-sized skeleton of a Prestosuchus (a 14-foot long reptile from the late Triassic Period) which kids can assemble. There are drawers of bones, and you can put the whole thing together. Neko was fascinated, and if she had been one year older, I think we would have spent the next hour assembling. One of the people running the room noticed her interest, and pulled out an excavation activity that she "reserves only for very interested paleontologists". The picture of Neko kneeling by the box is her hard at work at her task. Another jackpot in the Discovery Room was the large lizard that was available for petting. Did I mention we're into lizards?

Other highlights included an IMAX movie (with no babies to make us vacate mid-way), dinosaurs of all kinds and varieties, a life-size replica of a blue whale, and a live butterfly exhibit.

The butterfly exhibit was both breathtaking and heartbreaking all rolled into one. Neko desperately wanted to hold every butterfly, and she is so gentle with them. She knows to place your hand close to their legs and then ease them on without touching the wings. The catch? You're not supposed to do that. You're only supposed to hold them if they land on you. I let her scoop up one or two, and then noticed us getting the eye from one of the staff. From that point on she tried so hard to follow the rules, which is excruciating when you are five and all these butterflies that would willingly sit on your hand are there for the scooping. She could have stayed there for hours, and I only managed to get her out the door by using every parenting skill in the book. And perhaps a little bribery.

As I fall asleep tonight, I'm going to see if I can figure out how to fit the whole museum in our suitcase, since I suspect it will be years before we return. It might be possible…