Citations:twinkle in one's father's eye

Noun: "(idiomatic, colloquial, humorous) a notional look of anticipation or hope (either for sex or a child) in one's father's eyes at or around the time of one's conception"

 * 1950, Newspaper World, Issues 2711-2736, page 345:
 * One is getting to the boiling fowl stage when one can remember having one's palm read by Gipsy Sarah on the sandhills before the modern South Shore took shape; and before you, Mr. Mayor, were a twinkle in your father's eye.
 * 1972, Nadine Gordimer, Livingstone's Companions: Stories, Jonathan Cape (1972), ISBN 0224006673, page 72:
 * "Look, I lived in this town while you were still a twinkle in your father's eye
 * 1975, Terry Blake, The Fig Tree, Aim Publishing (1975), page 26:
 * Kimberly handed him a whisky and said: "So's that, my boy. Forty-eight-year-old Glenlivet. This was a connoisseur's drop before you were a twinkle in your father's eye."
 * 1992, Martina Cole, Dangerous Lady, Headline Publishing (2008), ISBN 9780755350704, unnumbered page:
 * 'Don't you take the piss out of me, sonny. I was doing this job when you were just a drunken twinkle in your father's eye!'
 * 2010, Max Overton & Jim Darley, Sequestered, Sequestered Books (2010), ISBN 9780980838701, unnumbered page:
 * “Thirty years ago you would not even have been a twinkle in your father's eye.”
 * 2012, J. D. Hallowell, Dragon Blade: War of the Blades, Smithcraft Press (2012), ISBN 9780979393587, unnumbered page:
 * “I passed my ninetieth birthday nearly fifty years ago,” Nat replied. “Furthermore, I have been studying medicine since before you were even a twinkle in your father's eye, old wizard.”
 * 2012, Sally McDermott, The Curious Caves of Honey Cove, iUniverse (2012), ISBN 9781475942965, page 118:
 * “Murder? Unlucky people have been drowning at that stretch of sea since long before you were a twinkle in your father's eye. Just forget it.”