What I want to be . . .

Today, Daniel said to me, as we were getting his shoes on and getting ready to leave the house, "When I get bigger . . . . I'm gonna buy a zoo."
This was totally random. I have no idea what made him think of it.
And it was so cute!!
He was so serious about the whole thing.
"Yeah? A zoo?" I echoed.
"Yeah. I wanna buy a zoo. Like Joe from Blue's Clues."
Right then, at that moment, that was the dream he was having.
It was what he was wanting to do . . .when he can. When he is "bigger."
There you have it.
A cross between zoo ownership and pre-school TV personality with a talking blue dog and lots of other crazily colored animals running around his house.
The funny thing is, a few days ago, I made a list of dreams and goals I have for myself (kind of a "before I turn the big 4-0" self-assessment thingy). Some of them practical and do-able. Some of them not. But I wrote them all down so I could see what is there on the inside. What I can still do.
It is a long list. 
Some of my items make me laugh.
Some make me sigh.
Some of them make me remember.
Some of them make me hope.
My biggest dreams are dreams about being better than who I am. Loving more. Knowing God more. Giving more. Seeing more. Doing more. Changing more. Growing more. (I am aware, so you know, that a lot of these dreams can and will only be realized with the help of God. I cannot do these things on my own. I am not capable of them. It is only by His grace and mercy that these things are even possible.)
And then there are the things like . . . "I want to be a ballerina."
Well, it is a list of dreams.
Just yesterday, my friend Kerri, on her Facebook status, posed, "Complete the sentence: my dream job would be . . . "
With 30 comments, it is the most replied to thread I have seen in my time as a facebooker.
People have dreams. No matter how young they are. How old. What they are doing. What they are not.
They have dreams, and they want to talk (or in this case, write) about them.
Between now and the then when he is actually "bigger", Daniel's dream of zoo tycoon will change and morph and grow and shrink and grow again. 
But it was his dream for a moment . . . today.
And it reminded me that, like myself, even my 2 year old has dreams.
Everyone does.
I hope he never stops dreaming.
Who knows? He just might own a zoo.
What are your dreams?

On another note, here is another cute Daniel story from today. When he woke up this morning, Daniel seemed fascinated, perplexed and a bit freaked out by the fact that he could not see himself.
"Mom! I can't see myself! I can't! I can only see my nose! I can't see myself or my mouth!!"
I assured him this was okay, and he couldn't see himself because he is inside of himself, and I told him it was okay because I could see him, and he was in fact there.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"I'm here?" he asked.
"You are." I answered.
"Okay."
That seemed to settle the matter.
Sometimes, we just need someone to tell us . . . they know we're here.