A Twinkle in Your Father's Eye: When Ideas Lead to Reality

I wanted to start this blog with this expression: A twinkle in your father's eye.

To me it describes a point at which your father "had ideas" about your mother but had not yet acted on them. It was a point at which he was flirting or trying to seduce her. I always assume it means the very night you were conceived (though perhaps not) and he had a twinkle in his eye -- a desire for your mother or "had ideas" about her.

So to me the expression refers to the idea of a person -- a physical being -- conceived of solely in idea form, before action led to physical conception. 

It captures the idea that real things in the real world first start as ideas, sometimes just small ideas. Your father maybe wasn't even intending to father a child that night. Maybe he was just looking for physical intimacy and, whoops, you happened. 

But before you were conceived of physically, first your parents had to "have ideas" which led to actions which led to you. 

In some sense, first you had to be conceived of as an idea before you were physically conceived.