Do you remember the old VW Bugs? There was a cubby in the far back behind the backseat. I used to crawl in there and nap. Must've been 2 or 3 years old. I haven't any memories before 1.5 though.
I remember walking to the grocery store with my mother. I was listening to a transistor radio and heard a news report which I asked her to explain. It was an announcement that either Alaska or Hawaii (I forget which) had become a state. I used to say that my earliest memory was watching snow fall on by birthday - but since my birthday is in June, I suspect in might have been my sister's instead (hers is in January)..
Mine's the same as angel's. I was two or three and my father ran over the family dog. My next memory doesn't happen until age seven or eight, when I had chickenpox and had to stay home. I was talking to a neighbor boy through my living room window and I pulled up my shirt to show him all the pox. My mom came in and shooed him away :)
Being handed out of the car to my grandfather, crying, because my father had made a road trip from Atlanta to NY in one stretch - this was the early 60's and I was like 2 I think. Needless to say, that was the last time the parents did trips like that in one haul.
I remember riding the train to Duluth with my mother to attend the funeral of my great-grandfather. The interior of the small church was all white; grandfather's casket was white; his beard was white. I behaved badly: I toddled across the aisle to my cousins sitting there laughing at me, then back and forth to my mother. I was not quite two years old.
Agent, hahahaha no, but I think it caused my fear of driving. We weren't going fast, but still.
I remember it hurt and my mother was freaking out. I also remember wondering why my sister was holding me like I was one of those sandwiches in the Blondie comics.
My earliest memory is being at the hospital with my grandmother and older brother to see my baby brother when he was born. It was one month after my 2nd birthday. And I have several memories of a family reunion in Canada that happened about 8 weeks later.
Not sure how old maybe 2 or 3, my mom was bent over showing me how to button my coat and I stood up and gave her a bloody nose lol. When I asked her about it she wasn't sure either she thought the same as I do 2 or 3. I know at 5 I was stripping to these boots were made for walking and my Mom was terrified I would become a pole dancer (couldn't be farther from the truth, except for swearing like a sailor I am boring)
Not sure what my first memory was, but I remember walking to the baker in a stroller - my sister was in the front seat part and I would stand in the basket in the back.
A really scary first memory was seeing a show where people in a hospital took off their masks and revealed absolutely horrifying faces. Many years later I found out it was "The Eye of the Beholder". It had to have been a re-run because it originally aired before I was born. The first rerun was before I was born, too, but it had to have been rerun again in the mid-to-late-1960's.
All my earliest memories are crappy :/ The one that sticks out clearest was Christmas when I was 3. My grandparents got me this awesome mechanical dog that I could walk with a remote control. I had it for a few hours before my mom and her boyfriend said, "Oh, it's broken. We have to take it back to the store." I was so confused because it had worked just fine for me, but they were the adults so they knew. We returned it to the store. Wasn't till a few years ago that it dawned on me they just wanted the money. They probably blew it all on booze, too.
Vicki, my brother fell out of the car, too! The door wasn't quite shut, and of course, no seatbelts in use. He wasn't hurt, but wet and muddy because he fell in a pothole.
It was ultimately a win for us, though, because it got us out of an evening church service. He must have been four or so.
Oh, geez, Gtzisshe, that is awful! I hope you received therapy!
I have several vivid memories from when I was 2 or 3. One was being at Knott's Berry Farm with my parents and grandmother and eating so much fried chicken and candy I thought my tummy was going to explode.
Another was being at this restaurant called The King's Arms in LA with my parents. It was a "fancy" restaurant and had full coats of armour at the entrance and was all very dark and red velvety inside (this was 1971 or '72). My mom had made me a long pink dress that matched hers (I was a very girly little girl) and I loved flouncing around and showing off in front of people.
The third memory I have is of my own brattiness. I had a habit of holding my breath literally until I passed out whenever I didn't get my own way. (Hey, I was an only child after several miscarriages and an only grandchild for almost 7 years! Can you imagine how spoiled I was?) Anyway, my mom wouldn't give me something I wanted. We were in the kitchen, so it must have been a popsicle or something. Anyway, I pulled the breath-holding stunt again and passed out. My mom had just had it with this foolishness and filled a pitcher with cold water and threw it on me. I woke up PDQ.
I just realized all of these memories involve food in some way. Hmmm ....
I have a very early memory of running down the street. I was about 2 years old. It took my mom and her friends about 3 hours to find me...when they did, I was asleep a few doors down with a dog in the backyard.
Frufra, I'm sure my mother would have still made us go to church.
I also remember falling into a swollen stream when my brother and sister and I were playing in the woods. I lost both shoes and a sock. I think I was about 4 or 5. I still remember the color of the dress and I had to go to church barefoot the next week because we didn't have money for shoes.
My first memory isn't really a story per se, it's just kind of a fragment. I am walking out of our apartment, stepping over the threshold which is huge, and very close, so I know I'm little. I am looking down and I am wearing this grey wool coat - I had that when I was around 1 1/2 or 2 years old. That's it. Boring. *L*
My mother claims I was 2 when we were at a mechanic's. There was a big German Shepherd-type dog laying in a dog house. I picked a bunch of clovers and liked the smell so much, I thought the dog would like it, too. I tossed the clover heads at him one by one. He'd had enough and growled. I got scared, turned tail and ran. He bit me in the ass. I also remember being at the hospital and one woman tried to calm her crying boy by pointing at me and saying, "See? That little boy over there isn't crying!" I wailed, "But I'm a girl!" and promptly bawled my eyes out. (My mother always had me in a pixie cut.)
I also have a vague memory of my uncle Higgins holding me in the air above his head while I screamed. I guess I've always had this fear of heights.
I remember a little scene when I was about 3 or 4. It was just us swimming in a large above ground pool we had, and my mom offered to make me a pallet and I said yes, thinking it was food. I was so deeply upset about that. I never said one word though. LOL
Running into my Daddy's arms when he returned from being deployed during Desert Storm! I was maybe three or four, and I remember it being the warmest, happiest feeling ever and I still think of that moment and tear up a bit every time I go to visit my now-retired Dad :)
apparently memory only starts around 2.5-3 years of age so you're all full of shit! i kid!
i was about 3 and licking on a sour sucker i found in my brothers garbage can while they were at school. my mom took a few pictures of me being a ninja about it but i can still see the bottom on that Batman garbage can and the treasure i found for my eager,little sugar loving mouth.
Yeah I remember being taught that and baldness is a gene passed down from your mom in Psych 101. My teacher said he would get back to me when I asked why my friends were going bald in their 20's (receding hairline meant bald to me at 18), and their maternal uncles and grandfather all had a full-set of hair, yet their dad's head was shiny as a cue ball.
I know photographs can trigger memories, but how do psychologists explain these stories away - and the bald gene. Still not buying either...lol
I was 3 or so, I got outside and was going to cross the street, our dog stopped me and he wouldn't let anyone near me till my mom ran out and got me. I got a swat, the dog got a treat.
I ran around the corner into our kitchen at probably about 3 and knocked our little green-screened, rabbit-eared tv off its milk crate (my mom had just left my dad) and onto the floor. It was a goner. And I was devastated - not because I realized the TV was never coming back, but because Scooby Doo had been on.
I remember showing up at the front door for my dad after he had a long day. I would show up with my blanket and bottle and tired as he was, my mother would join us for a ride around the block, and I would be asleep. To this day, I fall asleep easily in cars - but not planes. I have a lot of fond memories of playing outdoors w/friends. One of my favorites - digging to China. We were so certain if we stayed out a little bit later, we'd make it...lol please tell me others tried digging to China as well?!? Lol
Eighteen months--verified with my mom--My dad gave away our dogs who I loved a lot--and lied to me about it.
I remember it very clearly and it has always made me wonder how much little kids do understand because when he came home without them, I understood he lied to me. I just didn't have the language to talk about it clearly at that age.
My most distinct memories of childhood are between 1 and 5 --I am less clear about things in later childhood--but those pre-school years are very vivid for me.
I remember my great-aunt, who was a nurse, sneaking into my hospital room after my tonsillectomy and giving me a shiny half dollar. I was disappointed since I had been promised ice cream. I was two or three.
I was 18 months old and jumping on the bed. I fell and hit the edge of a dresser. I remember being at the hospital, them shaving my head and all the blood. I still have scar on the crown of my head. I must have had at least 5 or 6 stitches. So when my son was little, I could honestly tell him not jump on the bed because "you'll fall and crack your head open". Poor kid was also convinced I really did have eyes in the back of my head. He looked for them once. I told him they retract.
Snowstorms, we tried digging to China, as well! I think we dug for about an hour or so at a time until we got bored and moved on to something else.
Vicki and Shakey, consider yourself lucky about the pixie cuts. When I was a kid, I had very fine, long blond hair. And ever since I can remember, I have always managed to get a horrible bird's-nest in my hair right on the back of the head, no matter how careful we were shampooing. I STILL get this damn thing every morning. Anyway, after washing my hair, I would have to sit in front of my mom while she carefully tried to unsnarl this huge tangle from hell. It would take what seemed like hours, and no matter how careful she was, it would still pull at my scalp. Johnson & Johnson made this stuff called "No More Tangles," and my mom would spray, like, half a bottle of that shit on my head. It didn't even work well and would weigh my hair down and necessitate another rinse. Truly awful times. I finally managed to convince her to let me get a Dorothy Hamill wedge cut when I was around 8 years old. Still had the tangle, but it wasn't nearly as bad.
I was on a merry-go-round somewhere with my mother & an older boy cousin (he would have been around 14 then); they were trying to get me off the horse, and I was very upset and crying. My mom says I would have been about 2 1/2 then; I probably don't remember anything earlier due to the whomp on my head that left me with the hearing problems. She, on the other hand, can remember things from when she was less than a year old, go figure...
Mine's embarrassing. Funny as hell, but embarrassing.
My very earliest memory is from when I was 2 1/2. It was almost Christmas, and I had watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on TV the previous night. I loved the show, and I was crazy about Rudolph. So much so, I wanted to be just like him.
My mother had left me alone in the living room with the Christmas tree, so I decided that was my one chance to make myself just like that damn reindeer and be the savior of Christmas. I walked over to the tree, found a red light in the strand, got it out of the socket, and proceeded to shove the bulb up my nostril. It didn't go in very far, so I thought, "If one is good, two is better," and proceeded to remove a second red bulb from the strand and shove it up the other nostril.
Apparently, one of my nostrils was a bit larger than the other, because the second bulb went WAY UP into my nose. In fact, I shoved it up in there as far as my little fingers would allow.
It was at that very moment my mother returned to the living room and saw me standing in front of the tree with my finger up my nose.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm just like Rudolph, Mommy," I replied, sounding like someone with the worst case of sinus congestion in history.
My next memories are hazy, but I remember being in the bathroom of our apartment, where my mother removed the first bulb from my nose with no problem, but she just couldn't get the second one. Next, I remember us getting into a cab to go to the emergency room. The only memory of that day I have after that is lying on a bed in the ER, doctors and nurses standing around me, and a doctor inserting tweezers into my nose to get the remaining bulb.
He must have gotten it out, because to this day, I still can't make my nose light up.
I remember my father walking into the bedroom where the 4 of us kids were sleeping, I was in a crib, my brother in another crib, my sister in a bed, my other brother in another bed and I bouncing in my crib to get make it to move to get nearer my baby brother in the other crib to give him my blanky! My Dad came into push my crib back and get me to go to sleep!!! I was 2.
@Snowstorms, we tried to dig to China, too!! Everyone one in the neighborhood did, we played baseball, army and hide and seek in regularly!! it was awesome growing up in 60's!! We LIVED outdoors, never in the house!!!
Texshan and skeeball, what gave us that idea?!? Lol Texshan, I still have that nest at the back of my hair! Why my mother never cut it, I will never know! She would do the Tangle stuff too - which I still buy - and then French braid my hair every day. She was a saint, I was a brat!
@Snowstorms, I think we saw it on the Saturday morning cartoons, I am pretty sure Bugs Bunny would go down the rabbit hole and end up in China looking for carrots, and I think the Tazmanian Devil did, too! LOL
Earliest is being trapped under the sheets and the bars of my crib when I was 5 months old. I told my mother about this memory I remember having and she told me that wasn't possible. There would be no way I could remember it but I do. That and being potty trained at 14 months.
Funny this question is asked because I just wrote about my first memory for a book intro! I was almost three and it was a wedding. I was sitting in the park across the street from the church and the bridesmaids looked liked flowers to me.
@Texshan omg, my hair was/is the same way. I would cry and cry when my mom combed my hair every day. I was opposite though, where my mom and dad bribed me to cut mine. I took it! I got mine back though, my daughter's hair, although thick and wavy would get the worst rat's nests in the world when she was little. It was a huge fight. So glad she's a teen now to take care of it herself!
Snowstorm, my mom and dad loved my hair long. Mom would always put it in two pigtails with bows, which my father adored and thought was the cutest thing ever. Every photo of me as a kid, there I am with two long, wavy white-blond pigtails and bows. I was completely bald for several months after I was born, so I guess they were just super-relieved that I did eventually grow hair!
To this day, I have to buy detangling conditioner and dump tons of it on the back of my hair, wait a few minutes, then try to comb out the tangle with a shower comb before rinsing it out. Then after I get out, I have to use a wide-bristle brush to unsnarl it again. It's a nightmare, but I don't like short hair on me, so it's the price I pay.
Skeeball, I think you are right! I have distinct memories of Bugs Bunny going down rabbit holes and being in Australia and China!
My 4th birthday party. Crying because I couldn't wear my yellow three bears dress. My mom said no, you're 4 now not 3. That makes her sound kind of mean but she's not. Same party, grouchy because I wasn't first to go for pin the tail on the donkey. What a treat I was.
I remember Tame when we were kids. Once my 2 sisters and I decided to help mom and dad (and they divorced when I was 4) make our hair look purdy before church. So we took it upon ourselves to drench our hair in tame. They were neither pleased nor amused and all I remember is them taking towels to our head to get most of it out. It looked like it was snowing from our heads.
@Texshan I have found me a little miracle in a bottle for that wet hair/rat's nest combing thing recently. "Dove hair therapy nutritive solutions nourishing oil care detangler"! It is weightless and doesn't weigh down my finer then fine hair at all. It's wonderful!
Pre-school, so about 4 years old I fell off and then under a merry-go-round & sliced my head on the spinning platter. The day school attendant running carrying my bleeding self back to the school building is my 1st memory.
@ Snowstorms,you are not alone. Not only did we try digging to China, we did it with religious fervor ( Irish Catholic neighborhood) - to save the poor Chinese kids from starving. Oh, we so believed we were going to do it. Then the ice cream truck came, and well, so much for the starving kids in China...
I swear to god, I remember my 1st birthday 'party'. It's just a flash of being totally overwhelmed; they had turned the lights out, and the flickering candle-faces freaked me out. Why are all these people looking at me? What do they want? Why are they singing? etc. (I'm still super-duper SHY, shiest person on the planet maybe.)
I never realized it was a memory from my FIRST birthday, until I saw photographs when I was a teenager, helping sort my granny's effects. Same cake, same decorations, same spooky candlelit 70's-beard faces, and me---one year old with my eyes totally buggin'. I have those pictures now, and just looking at the cake can make me feel that panic again. It's amazing how certain emotions can burn into your brain literally FOREVER.
Can you be BORN with PTSD? I wonder sometimes. Writing about this has my heart racing. It's ridiculous!
mom says i wasn't quite 3 yrs old - our dog had just had puppies on the back porch and my mom and her best friend carol were in our kitchen looking out the back window watching them. Carol picked me up and put me on the sink counter so I could see...i can even remember what my mom was wearing - bizarre but true.
I was around 3-4 and I remember the day JFK was shot. I came in from playing and my Mom was crying. I was shocked because I'd never seen her cry before. I distinctly remember her being reflected in a mirror that used to hang in our living room.
It was shortly after my second birthday my dad had missed my party because of he was on the night shift at the mine. He took me to the local store..one of those amazing general stores that sold everything..a small scale Walmart but owned my a nice man named Mike, my dad let me pick my own birthday gift, a bride doll and it was perfect. I remember the colour of the sky as the sun was setting and him picking me up from the seat of the truck, not only is it my earliest memory it's the most loving memory I have of him.
Just yesterday I was telling my niece that we used to dig to China. She is in South Korea teaching for a year and my Brother went to visit her and yesterday he was at the Great Wall. Does anyone know where we got the idea to dig to China? was there a cartoon or something?
Agent, luckily my mom never tried that "eat it because there are starving kids in X country" with me. Her mother had always told her that she had to "eat it because there were starving kids in India," and she hated that. Once she told her mom, "Well, let's box it up and send it to them" and got spanked so hard I think I felt it 20 years later.
Unknown, the first time I remember my mom crying was the day Elvis died.
Red Ronnie, that's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.
We too dug for China, but I never thiught about what we wld do when we git there, it was the chance the digging gave us Earliest memory, I must hv been 2 or 3, was standing with my mom by a carriage with a baby in it, and some lady was talking to me, telling me I was once a baby like that. And I got. I got that I was once an infant. I can still remember the epihany-like feeling I had.
At about 3, my earliest memory is of sitting on the floor with a crayon and paper, and drawing a face (the simple, smiley kind), and then making scallop shapes for the hair, but not stopping at the side of the head, but continuing all around the head, like a beard. I remember thinking that that was a new, good thing. Also, I remember creeping towards my father's typewriter stand because I wanted to make doll clothes, and reasoned that I could use my his typing paper to do so...
I think it's significant because I grew up to paint and design clothes!
I remember being in my crib. No one outside of my family believes me but I was able to describe a dress my sister was wearing while she and mom talked and a toy she was teasing me with that got damaged before my 1st birthday. No photos of it but it was apparently my favorite. Mom thinks I might have been about 9 months.
tripping and falling in the living room, hitting my head on the corner of the coffee table. my mom thought my brains were coming out. she was screaming to the universe "oh my god!" and i was the one saying, "calm down woman". think i was about 3. the hospital gave me lots of cool bandages and i was the cool kid at pre-school with my stitches.
I remember when I was 3 months old. I remember having something white on my hands and trying to scratch and frustrated because I couldn't. When I mentioned this to my mother she said when I was 3 months old I had Chickenpox and she'd pinned long socks all up my arms to my shirt so I couldn't scratch!
My brother is a year and a half younger than me and I still remember the day he came home from the hospital. Another memory is going to buy a watermelon with my grandfather at a little store where they were all piled outside on a table underneath a string of bare light bulbs. I also remember my brother in a diaper falling down in puddle and my other grandfather wiping him down with a another cloth diaper. We lived in Illinois, moved to Ohio and lived in a house for a year before buying another one and I lived there starting kindergarten, but I remember a LOT of things happening in the first neighborhood at 3 and 4 years old.
I remember tying up my shoe laces unaided and everone clapping and saying ‘well done!’. Only discovered years later that I was less than two years old at the time.
Snowstorms: I tried "digging to China" as well and also spent most of my childhood trying to fly. Texshan: My 9 YR old's hair is the same way; she always gets these "rat's nests" in a certain spot at the back and it looks like she's got some dreadlocks going on back there.I use "Loreal Kids Tangle Tamer" on it.
this has got to be one of the best "your turns" ever, between the movie, tv and hair references (fellow pixie cut, holla!), I love realizing how many of us are of the same generation. I have tons of super early memories, but one of the most vivid is at age 2, watching the 1972 Munich Olympics and being scared hearing about the "gorillas" attacking the Olympic Village, I pictured them as running wild and terrorizing everyone.
I was 1 1/2. There was a huge storm, and a tree fell on a neighbor's car. I remember that, and I remember not being able to go on the swings the next day because the puddles were so huge.
I remember my 3rd birthday party very clearly. I can still visualize standing on a chair and blowing out the candles on my big pink cake, bought by my next-door-neighbors who were there, along with my family. I also remember asking why their dog couldn't come to my party.
When I was 3 playing outside and peeing my pants didn't make to the bathroom. So my mommy dearest found some diapers and made me wear them outside to show all the kids what a big baby I was...
When I was 3 playing outside and peeing my pants didn't make to the bathroom. So my mommy dearest found some diapers and made me wear them outside to show all the kids what a big baby I was...
When I was 3 playing outside and peeing my pants didn't make to the bathroom. So my mommy dearest found some diapers and made me wear them outside to show all the kids what a big baby I was...
I was 2 years and 10-1/2 months old. I remember seeing where Lincoln was buried, as we lived in Springfield at the time. Because of my height his tombstone seemed enormous, and with all of the beautiful flags surrounding it I remember thinking that the most important person in the world must be buried there. It literally led me on a quest to learn everything I could about Lincoln...and when I felt I had him figured out, I moved on to the Civil War in general. And now I'm the creator and author of a Civil War blog, which I'm hoping to turn into a series of books someday.
Snowstorms, Yes! My sister and i used to dig for China. We grew up 'Southern poor'. Exquisite china, crystal and sterling flatware and holloware w/no earned income [but cocktails start at 6]. We would take our mother's silver serving spoons out to dig with since we didn't have iron/steel/other metal/plastic implements to use. We knew we were being VERY bad because silver is very soft. We were taught that! Couldn't help it, though. 'Girls just want to have fun!'
The last time we dug for China, we uncovered a red roofing tile about 6" down. OMG!!! We had dug to the DEVIL's house. We gave each other some meaningful looks [we could read each other's minds] and VERY carefully spooned the dirt back over the tile, slunk back into the house and returned the spoons to their spots.
Cured us of using our mother's spoons until we discovered ice cream. But then we learned to let THAT soften.
And we were quite worried about the Devil coming after us for some time when we dug to his house instead of making it to China. Because you use the silver for family and social events -- Not for playing in the sand box behind the house.
Oh, sorry, we were about 2 and 4 when this happened. We both remember it.
I also remember almost drowning before she was born. So i was less than 2 when that happened because we're 21 months apart.
Just remember running out on a narrow pier with my mother screaming in the background. My father was coming back from a fishing trip, and i had to see him [i was a 'daddy's girl']. I fell off the pier, sank into [what i remember] as i nightmare of water, snakes and smothering inability to breath. All the guys on the boat jumped in and pulled me to the surface. I was then smothered in blankets and black coffee because this occurred at the end of the trip; no food or any other liquids were available.
It's short, but I remember my grandparents picking me up and taking me to their house the day my sister was born. I was 14 months old. It's just a snippet, a few seconds at most, but they've verified what I remember.
My earliest memory is of being in my dad's car, getting ready to go to the airport for a trip to see the grandparents. A dear old neighbor fellow whom I adored was saying goodbye at the driver's side window. I was 22 months old.
I have very vague memories of the house we lived in before we moved to the one my mom lives in now. I was about 4.
ReplyDeleteThe earliest clear memory I have is when I was 5, I fell out of our car as we were driving to get ice cream after church.
My earliest memory, and probably because it was so painful, was when my dog Lucky wasn't so lucky and got run over by a car :( I think I was 4 or 5.
ReplyDeleteGoing in for surgery on my hand - I would have been about 2 or so.
ReplyDelete@Vicki, hahaha , so sorry, but it is freakin' hilarious. Did it influence your feelings about ice cream?
ReplyDeleteDo you remember the old VW Bugs? There was a cubby in the far back behind the backseat. I used to crawl in there and nap. Must've been 2 or 3 years old. I haven't any memories before 1.5 though.
ReplyDeleteI remember walking to the grocery store with my mother. I was listening to a transistor radio and heard a news report which I asked her to explain. It was an announcement that either Alaska or Hawaii (I forget which) had become a state. I used to say that my earliest memory was watching snow fall on by birthday - but since my birthday is in June, I suspect in might have been my sister's instead (hers is in January)..
ReplyDeleteMine's the same as angel's. I was two or three and my father ran over the family dog. My next memory doesn't happen until age seven or eight, when I had chickenpox and had to stay home. I was talking to a neighbor boy through my living room window and I pulled up my shirt to show him all the pox. My mom came in and shooed him away :)
ReplyDeleteJust under 3 and crying because I wasn't allowed to go to my grandmother's funeral.
ReplyDeleteI also remember watching The Lawrence Welk show with my Greatgrandmother.
ReplyDeleteBeing handed out of the car to my grandfather, crying, because my father had made a road trip from Atlanta to NY in one stretch - this was the early 60's and I was like 2 I think.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, that was the last time the parents did trips like that in one haul.
I remember riding the train to Duluth with my mother to attend the funeral of my great-grandfather. The interior of the small church was all white; grandfather's casket was white; his beard was white. I behaved badly: I toddled across the aisle to my cousins sitting there laughing at me, then back and forth to my mother. I was not quite two years old.
ReplyDeleteTwo years old. Jumping off the top stair into my mom's arms on the landing -like 3 steps. So much fun!
ReplyDeleteAgent, hahahaha no, but I think it caused my fear of driving. We weren't going fast, but still.
ReplyDeleteI remember it hurt and my mother was freaking out. I also remember wondering why my sister was holding me like I was one of those sandwiches in the Blondie comics.
Fenway Park at age 4 sitting in my Dad's lap,surrounded by my Uncles and peanuts in the hard shell which I thought were magic beans.
ReplyDeleteMy earliest memory is being at the hospital with my grandmother and older brother to see my baby brother when he was born. It was one month after my 2nd birthday. And I have several memories of a family reunion in Canada that happened about 8 weeks later.
ReplyDelete@Vicki - So that's what happened.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how old maybe 2 or 3, my mom was bent over showing me how to button my coat and I stood up and gave her a bloody nose lol. When I asked her about it she wasn't sure either she thought the same as I do 2 or 3. I know at 5 I was stripping to these boots were made for walking and my Mom was terrified I would become a pole dancer (couldn't be farther from the truth, except for swearing like a sailor I am boring)
ReplyDeleteWalking in on my grandma and gramps having sex. I was 2-3? Horrible.
ReplyDelete*I didn't know what they were doing at the time, but as I got older, I realized thats exactly what they were doing.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what my first memory was, but I remember walking to the baker in a stroller - my sister was in the front seat part and I would stand in the basket in the back.
ReplyDeleteA really scary first memory was seeing a show where people in a hospital took off their masks and revealed absolutely horrifying faces. Many years later I found out it was "The Eye of the Beholder". It had to have been a re-run because it originally aired before I was born. The first rerun was before I was born, too, but it had to have been rerun again in the mid-to-late-1960's.
All my earliest memories are crappy :/ The one that sticks out clearest was Christmas when I was 3. My grandparents got me this awesome mechanical dog that I could walk with a remote control. I had it for a few hours before my mom and her boyfriend said, "Oh, it's broken. We have to take it back to the store." I was so confused because it had worked just fine for me, but they were the adults so they knew. We returned it to the store.
ReplyDeleteWasn't till a few years ago that it dawned on me they just wanted the money. They probably blew it all on booze, too.
seaward, mine are crap too. Parents fighting.
ReplyDeleteVicki, my brother fell out of the car, too! The door wasn't quite shut, and of course, no seatbelts in use. He wasn't hurt, but wet and muddy because he fell in a pothole.
It was ultimately a win for us, though, because it got us out of an evening church service. He must have been four or so.
Oh, geez, Gtzisshe, that is awful! I hope you received therapy!
ReplyDeleteI have several vivid memories from when I was 2 or 3. One was being at Knott's Berry Farm with my parents and grandmother and eating so much fried chicken and candy I thought my tummy was going to explode.
Another was being at this restaurant called The King's Arms in LA with my parents. It was a "fancy" restaurant and had full coats of armour at the entrance and was all very dark and red velvety inside (this was 1971 or '72). My mom had made me a long pink dress that matched hers (I was a very girly little girl) and I loved flouncing around and showing off in front of people.
The third memory I have is of my own brattiness. I had a habit of holding my breath literally until I passed out whenever I didn't get my own way. (Hey, I was an only child after several miscarriages and an only grandchild for almost 7 years! Can you imagine how spoiled I was?) Anyway, my mom wouldn't give me something I wanted. We were in the kitchen, so it must have been a popsicle or something. Anyway, I pulled the breath-holding stunt again and passed out. My mom had just had it with this foolishness and filled a pitcher with cold water and threw it on me. I woke up PDQ.
I just realized all of these memories involve food in some way. Hmmm ....
I have a very early memory of running down the street. I was about 2 years old. It took my mom and her friends about 3 hours to find me...when they did, I was asleep a few doors down with a dog in the backyard.
ReplyDeleteFrufra, I'm sure my mother would have still made us go to church.
ReplyDeleteI also remember falling into a swollen stream when my brother and sister and I were playing in the woods. I lost both shoes and a sock. I think I was about 4 or 5. I still remember the color of the dress and I had to go to church barefoot the next week because we didn't have money for shoes.
My first memory isn't really a story per se, it's just kind of a fragment. I am walking out of our apartment, stepping over the threshold which is huge, and very close, so I know I'm little. I am looking down and I am wearing this grey wool coat - I had that when I was around 1 1/2 or 2 years old.
ReplyDeleteThat's it. Boring. *L*
That was also after church. Might also explain my fear of falling.
ReplyDeleteMy mother claims I was 2 when we were at a mechanic's. There was a big German Shepherd-type dog laying in a dog house. I picked a bunch of clovers and liked the smell so much, I thought the dog would like it, too. I tossed the clover heads at him one by one. He'd had enough and growled. I got scared, turned tail and ran. He bit me in the ass. I also remember being at the hospital and one woman tried to calm her crying boy by pointing at me and saying, "See? That little boy over there isn't crying!" I wailed, "But I'm a girl!" and promptly bawled my eyes out. (My mother always had me in a pixie cut.)
ReplyDeleteI also have a vague memory of my uncle Higgins holding me in the air above his head while I screamed. I guess I've always had this fear of heights.
Ugh, my mother always had me in that damn short n' sassy cut. I looked like an 8-year-old cross dresser in my 3rd grade class photo.
ReplyDeleteI remember a little scene when I was about 3 or 4. It was just us swimming in a large above ground pool we had, and my mom offered to make me a pallet and I said yes, thinking it was food. I was so deeply upset about that. I never said one word though. LOL
ReplyDeleteRunning into my Daddy's arms when he returned from being deployed during Desert Storm! I was maybe three or four, and I remember it being the warmest, happiest feeling ever and I still think of that moment and tear up a bit every time I go to visit my now-retired Dad :)
ReplyDeleteapparently memory only starts around 2.5-3 years of age so you're all full of shit! i kid!
ReplyDeletei was about 3 and licking on a sour sucker i found in my brothers garbage can while they were at school. my mom took a few pictures of me being a ninja about it but i can still see the bottom on that Batman garbage can and the treasure i found for my eager,little sugar loving mouth.
Yeah I remember being taught that and baldness is a gene passed down from your mom in Psych 101. My teacher said he would get back to me when I asked why my friends were going bald in their 20's (receding hairline meant bald to me at 18), and their maternal uncles and grandfather all had a full-set of hair, yet their dad's head was shiny as a cue ball.
DeleteI know photographs can trigger memories, but how do psychologists explain these stories away - and the bald gene. Still not buying either...lol
I was 3 or so, I got outside and was going to cross the street, our dog stopped me and he wouldn't let anyone near me till my mom ran out and got me. I got a swat, the dog got a treat.
ReplyDeleteI ran around the corner into our kitchen at probably about 3 and knocked our little green-screened, rabbit-eared tv off its milk crate (my mom had just left my dad) and onto the floor. It was a goner. And I was devastated - not because I realized the TV was never coming back, but because Scooby Doo had been on.
ReplyDeleteI was 2 and my Grandfather took me to his neighbors house. He then took me for a ride on their horse. I was wild about horses as a child.
ReplyDeleteI remember showing up at the front door for my dad after he had a long day. I would show up with my blanket and bottle and tired as he was, my mother would join us for a ride around the block, and I would be asleep. To this day, I fall asleep easily in cars - but not planes. I have a lot of fond memories of playing outdoors w/friends. One of my favorites - digging to China. We were so certain if we stayed out a little bit later, we'd make it...lol please tell me others tried digging to China as well?!? Lol
ReplyDeleteMy 2nd birthday because there was a clown. I HATE clowns.
ReplyDeleteOdd but true, I have a foggy memory of being in my crib as a baby and my mother looking down at me.
ReplyDeleteEighteen months--verified with my mom--My dad gave away our dogs who I loved a lot--and lied to me about it.
ReplyDeleteI remember it very clearly and it has always made me wonder how much little kids do understand because when he came home without them, I understood he lied to me. I just didn't have the language to talk about it clearly at that age.
My most distinct memories of childhood are between 1 and 5 --I am less clear about things in later childhood--but those pre-school years are very vivid for me.
Our sun room in Boca, asking dad if dinosaurs still existed. Had to be younger than 3 years old.
ReplyDeleteI remember my great-aunt, who was a nurse, sneaking into my hospital room after my tonsillectomy and giving me a shiny half dollar. I was disappointed since I had been promised ice cream. I was two or three.
ReplyDeleteI was 18 months old and jumping on the bed. I fell and hit the edge of a dresser. I remember being at the hospital, them shaving my head and all the blood. I still have scar on the crown of my head. I must have had at least 5 or 6 stitches. So when my son was little, I could honestly tell him not jump on the bed because "you'll fall and crack your head open". Poor kid was also convinced I really did have eyes in the back of my head. He looked for them once. I told him they retract.
ReplyDeleteSnowstorms, we tried digging to China, as well! I think we dug for about an hour or so at a time until we got bored and moved on to something else.
ReplyDeleteVicki and Shakey, consider yourself lucky about the pixie cuts. When I was a kid, I had very fine, long blond hair. And ever since I can remember, I have always managed to get a horrible bird's-nest in my hair right on the back of the head, no matter how careful we were shampooing. I STILL get this damn thing every morning. Anyway, after washing my hair, I would have to sit in front of my mom while she carefully tried to unsnarl this huge tangle from hell. It would take what seemed like hours, and no matter how careful she was, it would still pull at my scalp. Johnson & Johnson made this stuff called "No More Tangles," and my mom would spray, like, half a bottle of that shit on my head. It didn't even work well and would weigh my hair down and necessitate another rinse. Truly awful times. I finally managed to convince her to let me get a Dorothy Hamill wedge cut when I was around 8 years old. Still had the tangle, but it wasn't nearly as bad.
I was on a merry-go-round somewhere with my mother & an older boy cousin (he would have been around 14 then); they were trying to get me off the horse, and I was very upset and crying. My mom says I would have been about 2 1/2 then; I probably don't remember anything earlier due to the whomp on my head that left me with the hearing problems. She, on the other hand, can remember things from when she was less than a year old, go figure...
ReplyDeleteMine's embarrassing. Funny as hell, but embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteMy very earliest memory is from when I was 2 1/2. It was almost Christmas, and I had watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on TV the previous night. I loved the show, and I was crazy about Rudolph. So much so, I wanted to be just like him.
My mother had left me alone in the living room with the Christmas tree, so I decided that was my one chance to make myself just like that damn reindeer and be the savior of Christmas. I walked over to the tree, found a red light in the strand, got it out of the socket, and proceeded to shove the bulb up my nostril. It didn't go in very far, so I thought, "If one is good, two is better," and proceeded to remove a second red bulb from the strand and shove it up the other nostril.
Apparently, one of my nostrils was a bit larger than the other, because the second bulb went WAY UP into my nose. In fact, I shoved it up in there as far as my little fingers would allow.
It was at that very moment my mother returned to the living room and saw me standing in front of the tree with my finger up my nose.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm just like Rudolph, Mommy," I replied, sounding like someone with the worst case of sinus congestion in history.
My next memories are hazy, but I remember being in the bathroom of our apartment, where my mother removed the first bulb from my nose with no problem, but she just couldn't get the second one. Next, I remember us getting into a cab to go to the emergency room. The only memory of that day I have after that is lying on a bed in the ER, doctors and nurses standing around me, and a doctor inserting tweezers into my nose to get the remaining bulb.
He must have gotten it out, because to this day, I still can't make my nose light up.
Love this story!
DeleteI remember my father walking into the bedroom where the 4 of us kids were sleeping, I was in a crib, my brother in another crib, my sister in a bed, my other brother in another bed and I bouncing in my crib to get make it to move to get nearer my baby brother in the other crib to give him my blanky! My Dad came into push my crib back and get me to go to sleep!!! I was 2.
ReplyDelete@Snowstorms, we tried to dig to China, too!! Everyone one in the neighborhood did, we played baseball, army and hide and seek in regularly!! it was awesome growing up in 60's!! We LIVED outdoors, never in the house!!!
Texshan and skeeball, what gave us that idea?!? Lol Texshan, I still have that nest at the back of my hair! Why my mother never cut it, I will never know! She would do the Tangle stuff too - which I still buy - and then French braid my hair every day. She was a saint, I was a brat!
ReplyDelete@Snowstorms, I think we saw it on the Saturday morning cartoons, I am pretty sure Bugs Bunny would go down the rabbit hole and end up in China looking for carrots, and I think the Tazmanian Devil did, too! LOL
ReplyDeleteEarliest is being trapped under the sheets and the bars of my crib when I was 5 months old. I told my mother about this memory I remember having and she told me that wasn't possible. There would be no way I could remember it but I do. That and being potty trained at 14 months.
ReplyDeleteFunny this question is asked because I just wrote about my first memory for a book intro! I was almost three and it was a wedding. I was sitting in the park across the street from the church and the bridesmaids looked liked flowers to me.
ReplyDelete@SnowStorms Yep, we dug to China.
ReplyDelete@Texshan omg, my hair was/is the same way. I would cry and cry when my mom combed my hair every day. I was opposite though, where my mom and dad bribed me to cut mine. I took it!
I got mine back though, my daughter's hair, although thick and wavy would get the worst rat's nests in the world when she was little. It was a huge fight. So glad she's a teen now to take care of it herself!
Three. Walking across the airport tarmac in Nairobi feeling the heat coming through my new red plimsolls.
ReplyDeleteSnowstorm, my mom and dad loved my hair long. Mom would always put it in two pigtails with bows, which my father adored and thought was the cutest thing ever. Every photo of me as a kid, there I am with two long, wavy white-blond pigtails and bows. I was completely bald for several months after I was born, so I guess they were just super-relieved that I did eventually grow hair!
ReplyDeleteTo this day, I have to buy detangling conditioner and dump tons of it on the back of my hair, wait a few minutes, then try to comb out the tangle with a shower comb before rinsing it out. Then after I get out, I have to use a wide-bristle brush to unsnarl it again. It's a nightmare, but I don't like short hair on me, so it's the price I pay.
Skeeball, I think you are right! I have distinct memories of Bugs Bunny going down rabbit holes and being in Australia and China!
My 4th birthday party. Crying because I couldn't wear my yellow three bears dress. My mom said no, you're 4 now not 3. That makes her sound kind of mean but she's not. Same party, grouchy because I wasn't first to go for pin the tail on the donkey. What a treat I was.
ReplyDeleteI remember Tame when we were kids. Once my 2 sisters and I decided to help mom and dad (and they divorced when I was 4) make our hair look purdy before church.
ReplyDeleteSo we took it upon ourselves to drench our hair in tame. They were neither pleased nor amused and all I remember is them taking towels to our head to get most of it out. It looked like it was snowing from our heads.
@Texshan
ReplyDeleteI have found me a little miracle in a bottle for that wet hair/rat's nest combing thing recently.
"Dove hair therapy nutritive solutions nourishing oil care detangler"! It is weightless and doesn't weigh down my finer then fine hair at all. It's wonderful!
Pre-school, so about 4 years old I fell off and then under a merry-go-round & sliced my head on the spinning platter. The day school attendant running carrying my bleeding self back to the school building is my 1st memory.
ReplyDelete@ Snowstorms,you are not alone. Not only did we try digging to China, we did it with religious fervor ( Irish Catholic neighborhood) - to save the poor Chinese kids from starving. Oh, we so believed we were going to do it. Then the ice cream truck came, and well, so much for the starving kids in China...
ReplyDeleteI swear to god, I remember my 1st birthday 'party'. It's just a flash of being totally overwhelmed; they had turned the lights out, and the flickering candle-faces freaked me out. Why are all these people looking at me? What do they want? Why are they singing? etc. (I'm still super-duper SHY, shiest person on the planet maybe.)
ReplyDeleteI never realized it was a memory from my FIRST birthday, until I saw photographs when I was a teenager, helping sort my granny's effects. Same cake, same decorations, same spooky candlelit 70's-beard faces, and me---one year old with my eyes totally buggin'. I have those pictures now, and just looking at the cake can make me feel that panic again. It's amazing how certain emotions can burn into your brain literally FOREVER.
Can you be BORN with PTSD? I wonder sometimes. Writing about this has my heart racing. It's ridiculous!
mom says i wasn't quite 3 yrs old - our dog had just had puppies on the back porch and my mom and her best friend carol were in our kitchen looking out the back window watching them. Carol picked me up and put me on the sink counter so I could see...i can even remember what my mom was wearing - bizarre but true.
ReplyDeleteI was around 3-4 and I remember the day JFK was shot. I came in from playing and my Mom was crying. I was shocked because I'd never seen her cry before. I distinctly remember her being reflected in a mirror that used to hang in our living room.
ReplyDeleteIt was shortly after my second birthday my dad had missed my party because of he was on the night shift at the mine. He took me to the local store..one of those amazing general stores that sold everything..a small scale Walmart but owned my a nice man named Mike, my dad let me pick my own birthday gift, a bride doll and it was perfect. I remember the colour of the sky as the sun was setting and him picking me up from the seat of the truck, not only is it my earliest memory it's the most loving memory I have of him.
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday I was telling my niece that we used to dig to China. She is in South Korea teaching for a year and my Brother went to visit her and yesterday he was at the Great Wall. Does anyone know where we got the idea to dig to China? was there a cartoon or something?
ReplyDeleteI'll try it, Reno! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAgent, luckily my mom never tried that "eat it because there are starving kids in X country" with me. Her mother had always told her that she had to "eat it because there were starving kids in India," and she hated that. Once she told her mom, "Well, let's box it up and send it to them" and got spanked so hard I think I felt it 20 years later.
Unknown, the first time I remember my mom crying was the day Elvis died.
Red Ronnie, that's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it.
We too dug for China, but I never thiught about what we wld do when we git there, it was the chance the digging gave us
ReplyDeleteEarliest memory, I must hv been 2 or 3, was standing with my mom by a carriage with a baby in it, and some lady was talking to me, telling me I was once a baby like that. And I got. I got that I was once an infant. I can still remember the epihany-like feeling I had.
At about 3, my earliest memory is of sitting on the floor with a crayon and paper, and drawing a face (the simple, smiley kind), and then making scallop shapes for the hair, but not stopping at the side of the head, but continuing all around the head, like a beard. I remember thinking that that was a new, good thing. Also, I remember creeping towards my father's typewriter stand because I wanted to make doll clothes, and reasoned that I could use my his typing paper to do so...
ReplyDeleteI think it's significant because I grew up to paint and design clothes!
I remember being in my crib. No one outside of my family believes me but I was able to describe a dress my sister was wearing while she and mom talked and a toy she was teasing me with that got damaged before my 1st birthday. No photos of it but it was apparently my favorite. Mom thinks I might have been about 9 months.
ReplyDeleteBeing at my grandpa's second wedding. I was about 2. I just remember the park and my sisters.
ReplyDeletetripping and falling in the living room, hitting my head on the corner of the coffee table. my mom thought my brains were coming out. she was screaming to the universe "oh my god!" and i was the one saying, "calm down woman". think i was about 3. the hospital gave me lots of cool bandages and i was the cool kid at pre-school with my stitches.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was 3 months old. I remember having something white on my hands and trying to scratch and frustrated because I couldn't. When I mentioned this to my mother she said when I was 3 months old I had Chickenpox and she'd pinned long socks all up my arms to my shirt so I couldn't scratch!
ReplyDeleteMy brother is a year and a half younger than me and I still remember the day he came home from the hospital. Another memory is going to buy a watermelon with my grandfather at a little store where they were all piled outside on a table underneath a string of bare light bulbs. I also remember my brother in a diaper falling down in puddle and my other grandfather wiping him down with a another cloth diaper. We lived in Illinois, moved to Ohio and lived in a house for a year before buying another one and I lived there starting kindergarten, but I remember a LOT of things happening in the first neighborhood at 3 and 4 years old.
ReplyDeleteI remember tying up my shoe laces unaided and everone clapping and saying ‘well done!’. Only discovered years later that I was less than two years old at the time.
ReplyDeleteSnowstorms: I tried "digging to China" as well and also spent most of my childhood trying to fly.
ReplyDeleteTexshan: My 9 YR old's hair is the same way; she always gets these "rat's nests" in a certain spot at the back and it looks like she's got some dreadlocks going on back there.I use "Loreal Kids Tangle Tamer" on it.
this has got to be one of the best "your turns" ever, between the movie, tv and hair references (fellow pixie cut, holla!), I love realizing how many of us are of the same generation. I have tons of super early memories, but one of the most vivid is at age 2, watching the 1972 Munich Olympics and being scared hearing about the "gorillas" attacking the Olympic Village, I pictured them as running wild and terrorizing everyone.
ReplyDeleteI was 1 1/2. There was a huge storm, and a tree fell on a neighbor's car. I remember that, and I remember not being able to go on the swings the next day because the puddles were so huge.
ReplyDeleteI remember my 3rd birthday party very clearly. I can still visualize standing on a chair and blowing out the candles on my big pink cake, bought by my next-door-neighbors who were there, along with my family. I also remember asking why their dog couldn't come to my party.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 3 playing outside and peeing my pants didn't make to the bathroom. So my mommy dearest found some diapers and made me wear them outside to show all the kids what a big baby I was...
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 3 playing outside and peeing my pants didn't make to the bathroom. So my mommy dearest found some diapers and made me wear them outside to show all the kids what a big baby I was...
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 3 playing outside and peeing my pants didn't make to the bathroom. So my mommy dearest found some diapers and made me wear them outside to show all the kids what a big baby I was...
ReplyDeleteI was 2 years and 10-1/2 months old. I remember seeing where Lincoln was buried, as we lived in Springfield at the time. Because of my height his tombstone seemed enormous, and with all of the beautiful flags surrounding it I remember thinking that the most important person in the world must be buried there. It literally led me on a quest to learn everything I could about Lincoln...and when I felt I had him figured out, I moved on to the Civil War in general. And now I'm the creator and author of a Civil War blog, which I'm hoping to turn into a series of books someday.
ReplyDeleteSnowstorms, Yes! My sister and i used to dig for China. We grew up 'Southern poor'. Exquisite china, crystal and sterling flatware and holloware w/no earned income [but cocktails start at 6]. We would take our mother's silver serving spoons out to dig with since we didn't have iron/steel/other metal/plastic implements to use. We knew we were being VERY bad because silver is very soft. We were taught that! Couldn't help it, though. 'Girls just want to have fun!'
ReplyDeleteThe last time we dug for China, we uncovered a red roofing tile about 6" down. OMG!!! We had dug to the DEVIL's house. We gave each other some meaningful looks [we could read each other's minds] and VERY carefully spooned the dirt back over the tile, slunk back into the house and returned the spoons to their spots.
Cured us of using our mother's spoons until we discovered ice cream. But then we learned to let THAT soften.
And we were quite worried about the Devil coming after us for some time when we dug to his house instead of making it to China. Because you use the silver for family and social events -- Not for playing in the sand box behind the house.
Oh, sorry, we were about 2 and 4 when this happened. We both remember it.
ReplyDeleteI also remember almost drowning before she was born. So i was less than 2 when that happened because we're 21 months apart.
Just remember running out on a narrow pier with my mother screaming in the background. My father was coming back from a fishing trip, and i had to see him [i was a 'daddy's girl']. I fell off the pier, sank into [what i remember] as i nightmare of water, snakes and smothering inability to breath. All the guys on the boat jumped in and pulled me to the surface. I was then smothered in blankets and black coffee because this occurred at the end of the trip; no food or any other liquids were available.
It's short, but I remember my grandparents picking me up and taking me to their house the day my sister was born. I was 14 months old. It's just a snippet, a few seconds at most, but they've verified what I remember.
ReplyDeleteFell off the back steps when I was three. I remember the falling sensation and the view before I fell; that's all.
ReplyDeleteMy earliest memory is of being in my dad's car, getting ready to go to the airport for a trip to see the grandparents. A dear old neighbor fellow whom I adored was saying goodbye at the driver's side window. I was 22 months old.
ReplyDelete