In recent years it’s become a catch phrase in our house.  Every time someone says, “I have an idea! ” Someone else replies, “Hey dies, I dot big deea!” and we smile, thinking about, Justus, my friend Geigy’s young son. 

It was years ago when Justus was a very little boy.  He burst into a conversation between his older siblings and Monica.  “Hey dies, I dot big deea – let’s have ice cream!”

Ice cream!  Sounds like a good idea to me!

When my kids were little they were also full of “big deeas”.  Sometimes, like Justus, the big idea was something like having ice cream, but more often they were far more elaborate. Little people with big ideas… I love it!

If it was an idea we couldn’t do at the moment (or ever!), I told them to write it down and put it in the idea basket we hung on the pots-and-pans rack in the kitchen. Some of their ideas were “dig a swimming pool in the back yard” or “make a fish pond with a  waterfall”.  Sometimes the idea came with a sketch or dimensions scrawled in childish pencil.

The ideas piled up in the basket, and from time to time we dumped them onto the table and had fun reading them and talking about them. We got some good ideas…but we never did dig that swimming pool.

Today as I write this post I came up with “a big deea” of dumping our basket into this blog. I hope you enjoy them!

 A – Alphabetical list games:  We made up alphabetical games of every kind when we were on long road trips.  The alphabetical animal game…alphabetical fruit game…alphabetical famous person game.  We would go around taking turns thinking of an animal or fruit that began with the next letter of the alphabet: aardvark, bear, cayote…apple, banana, coconut,…Ansel Adams, Buffalo Bill, Chuckie Cheese.   

B – Binder clips.  We use these to hold the folded end of the toothpaste tube after we push the toothpaste up toward the top.

 

C – Christmas cards prayers.  When Christmas cards come in the mail I don’t open them right away.  We wait till dinner when we are all together and then we take turns opening them. Whoever opens the card says a prayer for the family or person who sent it to us.

 D– Dry erase markers.  We keep a dry erase marker in the bathroom to write notes and memos on the mirror. (I should make myself a dry erase note on the computer screen that it’s time to stop writing at this computer and get started with my laundry!)

 (more to come)