Earliest childhood memory...think way back.

[Raven]

I don't know why this came into my head but I have a VERY EARLY memory of standing in my crib, holding on to the rail and looking down a dark hallway. I don't think I was crying or upset, I was just looking. I must have been pretty young or else this is a false memory.

Anybody else remember that far back?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

1. "Donde está papá?" "Trabajando."

While being taken from the crib by Mom at morning.

Always bummed me out, that. I was no older than 3.

Also, from the aforementioned crib, at night, the lights from the cars moving on the ceiling. Creeped me out.

P.S.: The subject line should NOT be construed as evidence that Brazilians speak Spanish. We speak Portuguese. My family was of immigrants.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

2. What does "Trabajando" mean? (NEVERMIND!).

I know that "Donde esta papa?" is "Where is Papa?" or something similar. But I don't know "Trabajando."

:crazy:

On Edit: "Working," apparently. D'oh. Just like "travaille" en francais or..... Sorry. Nevermind.

[Arugula Latte]

5. "working" nt

[Arugula Latte]

4. Headlight-made light & shadows moving on my wall and ceiling are one of my strongest memories too

But I kind of liked it ....

[SmokingJacket]

23. I remember figuring out what it was.

Seems obvious, but when I was three or four or so, I suddenly realized that those shadows were HEADLIGHTS! It was like, wow, the world makes sense.

[ohiosmith]

3. Surrounded by millions just like me I'm being propelled through a vast darkness

to a destination that will ultimately determine my destiny.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Yes.

I described a wallpaper that I thought was in my room when I was a baby but my mother told me that it was the wallpaper in the dining room of the apartment where they lived before buying the house. My playpen was set up there and I probably looked at it every day for months. They bought the house when I was about 18 months old. It spooked my mother that I had any memory of that apartment. I don't have any other memories for certain from that age but I do remember about a half dozen incidents that happened before age 4.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

7. I remember climbing out of a crib at my grandmother's house...

I'm not sure how old I was. It's possible my grandma just had me sleep there because all the other beds sat high off the floor, and she didn't want me to fall off the couch.

[bertha katzenengel]

8. dropping this red stuffed doll-thing out the car window, wailing, and

my dad turning around to get it.

[MonkeyFunk]

9. I have two crib memories

one was waking up in the morning and looking down the hallway into the kitchen and seeing my family. Another was a night I threw my stuffed dog out of the crib and tried to go get him. I climbed out of the crib and broke my collarbone.

I don't remember getting hurt - I just remember wanting to go get Spotty.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

10. Thumbing through a magazine

and asking my mother to make a cake I saw in the magazine for my birthday. It was a clowns head cake for my third birthday. And damned if she didn't figure it out...........

[MysticalChicken]

11. One that I thought was a false memory for YEARS...

...but it turned out to have actually happened:

I was three, almost four years old, and I was watching an episode of the TV show Fame. (Don't ask. I had weird taste as a kid.) In that episode, the Wicked Witch of the West appeared, and it frightened me so much that I refused to watch that show ever again because I didn't want to see "the green witch." It also permanently ingrained that image into my head. However, as the years passed, I began to wonder whether I really had seen the Wicked Witch of the West. It was more than twenty years before I got my answer: there was an episode of Fame during the second season in which one of the characters hits her head and thinks she's Dorothy, and other characters in the show are portrayed as various Wizard of Oz characters, including--yes--the Wicked Witch. Now I kind of want to see that episode again.

Earliest memory that has nothing to do with TV: I was four, and all I remember is being on a train and being sick. I had pneumonia and I remember distinctly kneeling on the floor in front of my seat and using the seat itself as a pillow.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. Even without knowing that TV show I can predict something:

You'll be amazed at how distorted your visual memories are. The witch will look different, her size relative to the screen will be different, she'll move at a different speed, maybe be located at the opposite corner, and make different facial expressions. The scenery's lighting will look different too.

Small children seem to store only the bare bones of the information they acquire.

[MysticalChicken]

74. I seem to remember...

... very distinctly, a close-up of the WWotW and her cackling evilly, which is probably what frightened me so much.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

75. If you ever manage to watch that show again, please let me know. -nt

[MysticalChicken]

78. I'm hoping it will show up On Demand one of these days. (nm)

[MsKandice01]

26. I have a few memories from the age of 2....

Eating banana pancakes at the daycare across the street from my house (I know I was 2 because I started preschool right when I turned 3).

My uncle's sadistic tradition of throwing all the toddlers in the pool (with people in the pool to catch them, of course). I very clearly remember when it was my turn.

My son is 4 and is just kills me to think that some of what he's doing right now he'll remember into adulthood.

[conscious evolution]

12. 9 months old

My family was driving down a narrow dirt road through the woods when a deer jumped across the road right in front of us.
I also have memories of constructon on the house we moved into at 15 months of age.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

13. I remember tearing the wallpaper off my walls when I was maybe two.

From the same time period I have two other memories--the first is going to a Japanese restaurant and being totally in love with these pink Pepto-Bismol-looking mints they had, and the second is making a print of my little 2-y-o hands with my grandmother.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

14. I was less than 19 months old.

My mom and I were living with her parents since my dad was in the Army...

There was a hallway with a door with panes of glass at the end of it, and a glass doorknob...

I remember crawling down that hall to the door and reaching for the doorknob...

I couldn't reach it, and began to cry...

Someone came and opened the door and picked me up...

I later told this memory to my mom, and she confirmed the details; plus she was amazed I remembered!

It is my earliest memory...

[Sequoia]

19. "......he crawled on down the hall and said mother, I'm going to...."

[Mad_Dem_X]

30. Wow, that's quite an early memory!

Less than 19 months old...very cool.

[Left Is Write]

15. I remember falling on a cement block during the construction of our back porch.

I remember being picked up by my dad and carried into the house at a fast pace (I can still see his arm), and I remember him yelling for my mother. I can still see the chaos from the POV I had then.

I was not quite two.

[Roon]

16. I remember being in a crib

and there was a dresser that towered over me with a black cat perched on it. I remember being afraid of the cat. I told my Mother this years ago and she was shocked that I remembered "odie". The cat we had at the time.

[skygazer]

17. I remember getting a diaper for my mom so she could change me

I must have been around 18 months. I toddled into her room but couldn't get the drawer open and she had to come help me. I have almost no memories of the inside of that house (I remember the outside well) but I've always remembered the door to her room was at the bottom of the stairs and the dresser where she kept my diapers was to the right.

[trof]

20. Being in my room with an expandable gate across the doorway.

I had to be about 3 or 4.

[GOPisEvil]

21. Walking with my mom, looking up at the building we lived in.

This was Fulda Army Post in (West) Germany in 1970 or 71.

[Joe Fields]

22. When I was born. I looked around....pleaded with her to let me back in....

[SmokingJacket]

24. Carrying a bunch of green marbles in a salad basket.

It was a wire basket used to shake off water from lettuce after you washed it. I thought it was a neat toy and put my marbles in it. I was less than two -- a very vivid image.

Also, swimming with my parents in a pool under red lights at night.

[hippiechick]

25. My oldest brother holding me upside down to walk on the ceiling

.... I must have been about 2.

The other memory I have is of being in my crib (2 or 3-ish years old) and asking for a cup of water before I went to sleep/they turned off the light/whatever, and my closest-in-age brother brought me a glass of hot tap water (my siblings didn't like me very much).

[BarenakedLady]

27. Mine was also in the crib

looking towards my bedroom door through the slats.

[steelemagnolia]

28. I remember sitting in my Grandfather's lap

My paternal grandfather was a very frail man; he had Parkinson's and had suffered several heart attacks and strokes. He wasn't able to talk much and was in a wheelchair. I was about three and I remember my father putting me in his lap and his hands were shaking terribly. I was fascinated by his hands shaking like that because I didn't understand that he was sick. He died about a month after my 4th birthday. That is one of my earliest memories.

Another one that comes to mind is my fourth birthday. My mother had made me a cake with chocolate icing and it had life-savers on the top and she had put the candles in them. I remember her leaning in with me blowing those candles out. There's a picture of that somewhere in the family archives - that's one of the first memories I have of my mother that I really remember.

[Mad_Dem_X]

29. The first Moon landing

I was 2-1/2 years old. I remember standing in the living room looking at the TV, while my mother was behind me, either sitting in a chair or standing up ironing clothes. That's my earliest memory.

[InternalDialogue]

32. It's my earliest memory too.

I was a bit younger, just 1-1/2, but I remember being plopped down on the floor in front of the TV, very close to the screen, and seeing the moonscape scroll in front of my eyes. It wasn't until years later when I saw video of the landing that I connected the memory to the images.

[volstork]

47. That was my 3rd birthday

My dad took me into the yard of our new house to show me the moon and to tell me that a man was walking on it right then.

[Arugula Latte]

76. I remember that, too. I was 3 1/2, so the details are dim.

But I do remember the glow of the black-and-white TV and the image of the lunar landscape.

[InternalDialogue]

31. This is an awesome thread!

:thumbsup:

!!!!!

[havocmom]

33. Yep, crib memories.

Dad played in a dance band and came home very late. I remember him in his blue suit, covering me up. He was the only one in the family who understood that the satin binding on ONE edge of my blank-ey was softer than the other three and made sure I had that edge toward my face. Loved to feel that edge of the satin when I fell asleep.

I recall the moonlight coming in the window behind him, giving a blue-ish glow to his dark hair. It is a good memory. He looked so young, not worn out. I like that memory of him best.

Also recall strolling up the open backyards of our neighborhood at age two, very tired from playing with the bigger kids and wanting a nap. Summer in Missouri- sometimes I just preferred to carry my clothes in that heat. Ah, the things you can get away with at age two.

[WinkyDink]

34. Potty in my Grandmother's living room.

[u4ic]

35. I was about 2 1/2, and my mother was giving me a bath

my father stormed in and dragged her across the room by her hair.

[gemdem]

39. I'm sorry that you don't have a more pleasant memory

That's a terrible one to carry around.

:hug: :hug: :hug:

[u4ic]

49. Thanks for the hugs, gemdem

:hug: :hug: :hug:

[Guava Jelly]

43. Oh you!

:hug: I remember the picture you posted of your mother.
She was very beautiful.
I wonder where you get it from :sarcasm:
More :hug: for M'friend :loveya:

[u4ic]

50. Hey you!!

:hug: :loveya:

[RFKHumphreyObama]

52. Oh U4ic

I'm so sorry :hug: :hug: :hug:

[u4ic]

53. Thank you, my friend

How are you? :hug: :hug: :hug:

[RFKHumphreyObama]

54. I'm OK -thanks for asking

I have my good days and bad days at the moment but am grateful for the tremendous support I have received both online and in real life. Thanks for asking and thank you for that lovely PM you sent me -I cannot adequately express how profoundly moved and touched I was by it

And how are you?

[u4ic]

68. Yes, you will have good and bad days...

and then once you think you're done grieving - it'll come back and bite you in the rump once in a while. It's definitely not a linear thing, at least not for the first year or so.

I'm doing great, sweetie. You're very welcome for the PM, I know how much that support can mean to someone. I'm so glad you're getting lots of it. You're well loved here. :loveya:


Please take care of yourself. :hug:

[DainBramaged]

36. My blanket got taken away

My Father decided it was silly to have one. I resented him till the day he died, and I still do. He didn't understand "needs".

[MrsMatt]

37. Running from the house to the barn,

and I could see my little feet in those white baby shoes (that were the norm 40 some years ago) just chugging away over the gravel. I was laughing, and when I access of this memory, I get a faint recollection of the unbridled joy children feel just being alive.

[Guava Jelly]

38. I was swimming toward a big sphere

There must have been thousands of runners I was pulling ahead and then i hit a wall and blacked out..I believe i won..
:dunce:

[LeftyMom]

40. I remember going camping with my Dad's best friend's family, I was 2.

And playing with his sons, mostly the younger one who was a bit younger than me. That was before anybody knew how sick he was- he died when he was 16. :(

[gemdem]

41. Crib memory I suppose

Don't recall the age -- just the crib. There was a lamb or teddy bear on the headboard, I think. What I remember most clearly was the crib toy attached to the bed (mirror, knob, rachets, bells) and the noise it could make. I also remember the blanket -- a woven cotton blanket that was some shade of pink with little spots on it.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

42. I remember standing in my crib and shaking the rails

An early rabble rouser!

[MrsMatt]

48. Attica! Attica!

[Greyskye]

44. Was 2 YO or less

Old enough to be able to walk/trot around pretty quick at any rate. I was running around a wooden coffee table, when I slipped, and hit the (sharp!) corner with the back of my ear. Opened a big gash, and evidently messed up the cartilage in my ear. I had to go to the emergency room for stitches. My left ear still sticks out a little more than my right does. :eyes:

What I still remember of this incident: running around the table, and the moment my feet slipped out from under me. At the hospital, with a nurse holding my head still while they did the stitches.


While I was typing this up, I remembered one other incident from the same timeframe. My tongue wouldn't stick out of my mouth, as the little fleshy attachment underneath was attached more than normal. When the doctor noticed this during a checkup, he simply commented on it, and before my parents could react, reached out, grabbed some kind of instrument, and snipped it! My parents were pissed since the doc hadn't even let them know what he was going to do. I simply screamed a lot, as I recall. He gave us a coupon for an ice-cream cone, which I couldn't freaking eat because my tongue had just been freaking cut!

I've since forgiven him, and so has my wife. :evilgrin:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

70. Gene Simmons? Is that you?

[Greyskye]

71. damn!

I've got to learn to be more subtle! I've been found out!

[volstork]

45. I can remember being 1 or 2 years old

We lived in an apartment until right before I turned 3, then moved to the house my folks still live in; I have not been in the apartment in almost 40 years, but could draw the floorplan with ease. I remember watching the show "Juila" with Diahann Carroll on TV. I also remember getting into my mom's sugar canister when she sat me on the countertop in the kitchen. I remember hiding under my parents' bed and eating a whole roll of Certs from my dad's nightstand. Good times!

[greatauntoftriplets]

46. I remember being in my crib and being scared by the toy soldier decal at the foot.

So I screwed my eyes shut to avoid seeing them. I was young enough that the crib was still in my parents' bedroom and not in what was to become my old room. My mother never believed that I could remember that, and she is not around anymore to ask how old I was when the crib was moved out of their bedroom. It was before I was 2, because I got a big bed at that age right after my birthday.

[AwakeAtLast]

51. I do - but it was a hospital crib

Silver bars and a tile wall room. My Mom about fell over when I described it to her. I think I might have been almost 2.

Must have been traumatic is all I can think. I don't have any phobias about hospitals, though.

[barb162]

55. my family moving, to another place. I was about 2.

[TrogL]

56. Standing under the kitchen table asking for hot chocolate

[enigmatic]

57. My brother playing his new 45 of The Beatles "Yesterday"

I was 3, and I remember him showing me the sleeve and telling me who they were...

[Jimbo S]

58. Me being circumcized

But seriously, I remember being operated on when I was three. Lying on the table kicking and screaming helplessly and then comes the mask...

[tonkatoy57]

59. Great question

In the summer of 1959 my dad bought a boat, so I had just turned or not quite turned two.

We lived on the Eastern Shore of MD and my mother had gone home to North Carolina for a visit. While she was gone my dad purchased a 58' cabin crusier that slept six. I remember some, shall we say, contention accompying his purchase since, as the family story goes, he had bought the boat without my mom's knowledge and, ahem, signed her name on the check.

Being a farm boy from North Carolina and knowing nothing about boats my dad hired a retired oysterman to teach him what he needed to know about piloting the boat. In the pilot house of the boat there was a storage space or a bunk over where the pilot stood that ran the width of the pilot house. The area was pointed like the bow of the boat and had windows on three sides. I remember laying up there at night as we pulled in to what must have been either Oxford or Kent Island, MD. The lights in the harbor and the navigational buoys and the other boats were reflecting off the water. I remember it being this incredible show of red, green, and amber lights. And what I remember as a huge Carling Black Label sign on top of the marina. I can still hear the purr of the engines, the water slapping on the side of the boat, and smell the salt water mixed with the exhaust from the boat and the smell of food from the marina restaurant.

I have several early memories tied to that boat. In these recollections my mom and dad are so young and always seem so happy and content. I think that this must have been the happiest time of their marriage. My dad had a great job. My mother had a circle of friends she did lots of things with. We were always having or going to a party. In 1962 we moved back to North Carolina because my grandfather was very ill and things never seemed the same. My dad worked outrageous hours and traveled a lot on business and my mother never had the same joy in her that I remember from when I was a very young child.

[ironflange]

60. Six months old

The family is moving from Edmonton to Calgary, I can clearly recall lying in the back seat of the car (whaddaya expect, it was 1958), on my back. I'm looking straight up at the birdcage hanging from the ceiling, rocking back and forth. The family made fun whenever I mentioned this, but how else could I have known that that's where the cage was? Huh?

[NewWaveChick1981]

61. My sister being born.

:) I was 18 months old, and the reason I remember it is because it was Christmas Eve. Dad took me to see Mom and my new little sister, and Santa was there at the hospital. He asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I said, "I already got it. Mommy and Daddy gave me a new little sister!" My dad tells me he went around telling everyone at the hospital what I'd said because he thought it was so cute. Dad couldn't believe I could remember that, but I told him what I remembered about the hospital waiting room and Santa (Santa was wearing brown shoes, and I always thought they were supposed to be black) and what my sister's head looked like (kind of mushed together, as a lot of babies' heads are at first). He told me I was exactly right and that I really must have remembered. :)

[1gobluedem]

62. Standing in my crib talking to my sister

I was about 20 months old. I talked articulately very early. Not so hot on the walking, though, I was about 15 months before I walked all the time.

[Breeze54]

63. 2 yrs. old?? Waking from nap and freaking out!!

I remember waking up and looking over the end of the crib
and seeing our shepard/collie's nose sticking out from under the
crib and started screaming. I believe I was crying, "Wolf! Wolf!"
They must have read, "Little Red Riding Hood", to me just before! ;)

[MilesColtrane]

64. In the crib, in my parent's room.

I specifically remember the bright yellow toy that was on the side with different things to grab and play with.

A little later, I remember racing Daddy to the shed at the end of the backyard.
He'd always let me win. Seems like Harry Caray was on the radio calling a Cardinals' game.

I'd also beg him to play "bump the ceiling" when he came home from work. He'd grab me and my brother and raise us over his head until we could touch the ceiling.

I miss him.

[EnviroBat]

65. When I was a little baby boy...

We lived in an apartment complex in Rochester NY. There was a little playground which was at the end of a long, paved path. Along the path there was a big, orange utility box with a glowing red light on the top of it. I believe it was some sort of electrical junction box or something, but whatever it was, it scared the hell out of me. When I would walk by it, I could hear it making this low, humming sound. It seemed like the light on the top would always manage to cycle on and off when I was approaching. I seriously believed there was something evil about this thing. I remember my Dad walking by it with me once. When I became apprehensive about the big, orange machine, he did what any smart-ass Dad would do. He picked me up and sat me on top of it. As you can imagine, this freaked me out a little. I could feel it humming, and I was thinking the monster that lived inside was going to come out any second, but Dad was right there. After that day, I wasn't afraid of it anymore. Occasionally I would walk up to it, and touch it, to prove to myself that there was nothing to be afraid of.

I would later come to learn that shortly after we left Rochester, the big, orange box killed, and ate a toddler just about the same size as me. Guess Dad didn't know everything afterall...

[Deep13]

66. baptism

I remember some guy dumping water on my head and having some go up my nose. That is the extent of it.

[SacredCow]

67. I have one...

I distinctly remember playing in the gravel under the carport at our summer home. My parents say I can't possibly remember this, because they paved the carport not all that long after I was born, but I swear it's there. I remember the day they paved it, in fact.

[EnviroBat]

69. Oh yeah, there's this one too...

I was real little, I think I was barely talking at this time. But for some reason I was sitting under the kitchen table. We had this Samoyed dog, but I don't remember her name. I remember seeing her squat on the kitchen floor, and this brown stuff just started slithering out of the bottom of her. I though that was really strange and I was oddly drawn to it. Fortunately my mother dashed in to the kitchen in time to save me from painting myself with poo. My little sister, on the other hand, was not so lucky... And the dog? Well, we didn't have her for very long after that, from what I can remember.

[Arkansas Granny]

72. I remember sitting on the floor and looking out the front door of

our house. From the description I've given family, it was a house we lived in when I was about two years old.

[Vidar]

73. Hanging plastic tools on a radiator. They fell in. I was three.

[redqueen]

77. ooh i hate these kinds of threads

i usually just don't even bother. but couldn't help it... i saw the thread title and it popped into my head before i could shut it down.

mine: book beating!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

79. You were beat up witha a BOOK? As a toddler? That's evil. -nt

[redqueen]

81. Yeah well...

jesusgod... i almost started to explain how i may have deserved it.

fuckin hell. yeah, that's it for me today.

nighty night.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

82. Listen to me, lady. NO YOU MAY NOT. Did I make myself clear?

And let me throw in a few more :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: for good measure. Harumpf!

[IntravenousDemilo]

80. I remember this huge tile floor in the living room when I was two.

And when I went back as an adult and saw the same floor, it didn't look nearly so big. Funny that...

[graywarrior]

83. Cutting my finger when I was in the crib.

My mother said there was no way I could remember that. I was three months old. But I do remember.

[Raven]

84. Boy! I think you get the prize! :-)

[Zavulon]

85. My parents had a German advent calendar for Christmas, and

on the 24th of December I got to put the star on the top of the tree. I was a little over three at the time. Strangely, I don't have another memory until my first day of school.

[InvisibleTouch]

86. Quite a few from the age of 2 or so.

Nothing I want to go into too much detail on, just a variety of everyday stuff. I don't think I was quite "fixed in the body" before that point, as I had some gray shadowy memories of what had come before (or it could just be the old mind playing tricks). I do have a distinct recollection a few years later, around age 4 or so, suddenly realizing I was supposed to address this person I was interacting with as "mommy" - and feeling really weird about it. Who was this person, and why wasn't I back where I belonged? Come to think of it, I've felt snippets of that most of my life.

[devilgrrl]

87. Crashing a birthday party at age 2...

This had to have been around '65/'66 when we lived outside of Hartford, CT. A older neighbor girl was having an outdoor birthday party, there were all these kids there, more importantly, cake and candy. I invited myself but was escorted away. :-(

I'm still socially inept.

[Inchworm]

88. Every time I read this post I remember a different memory

So.. I'll list a few

-Reading books on the bookmobile

-Giant blackbird flocks darkening the sky

-Nearly drowning in a train car full of corn

-Hiding in bathtub with a mattress over us during tornado

-setting fire to a vacant lot

-the words "wait 'til your dad gets home"

Next time I read this Ill remember something else. I guess my mind is a hodgepodge of mush :D

:hi: