What is your earliest memory?

I could list several things which are still very strong in my memory before the age of 5.. but the one that stands out most was when at around the age of 15, I mentioned to my mother about a specific memory I had , that only she and I could have known , and had never been spoken about in my family.. and she looked at me in shock and said, ''you can't possibly remember that, you were only 14 months old''..

.that was my first real clear memory....it was the memory of being in the arms of my first foster mother and my mother waving to me from the back window of a taxi, then during my stay at the foster home, the son of the family was sent to get me from my cot.. he could only have been around 9 years old.. and he dropped me from the top of the stairs :oops:... ......but there was many memories when I was 2 and 3 years old as well, but the former was my very first .. !!
 
I know I was under 5 but not sure how old. I remember my mom telling me it was the first day of spring while I was playing outside and how I thought that was great. I also remember my uncle coming to visit in his VW bug and how I thought that car was so great because it was so small like me.
 
I remember "Gammie" in Fort Lauderdale FL taking me to the toy store and telling me I could pick out anything in the whole store. I picked out a little doll. Then she took me to Howard Johnson's for a chocolate milkshake. I found out later that she had very little money.

Later in life, when my mother would tell us all about how she didn't like how her mother, Gammie, had various issues and would describe them in detail, I always responded with how I thought she was the sweetest person in the whole world and how much I loved her.

My mother wrote a little book of her life toward the end of her own life. She added these issues her mother had. I said, "Are you sure you want to leave this kind of legacy about your mother? Back in the day no one really understood how untreated low thryroid can affect your personality. I reminded my mother that it wasn't Gammie's fault that "she was messy" or her "slipped showed", or was paranoid, etc. She then edited and deleted it. You're welcome Gammie :giggle:
 
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CinnamonSugar said:
What’s your earliest memory ?
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The race

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And......I won!!
 
Pepper said:
My grandma (maternal) was very poor too @Lara. Every year on my birthday she gave me a $10 dollar bill. She always said she found it in a crack in the wood on the boardwalk. She was so poor, money-wise. She had a big heart & I loved her so much.
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my paternal granny was very poor too... but every birthday she would give me and my my siblings a postal order for about 2/6d in with our birthday cards... she couldn't ever afford it, and I only realised that when I was grown, I wished my parents had told me just how poor she was...


... I've just chosen a random year in the mid 60's ( when I was about 10 years old ) and put 2/6d into the historic calculator and it tells me it would be worth £5 in today's money
 
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My earliest memory was when I was 2 and followed my grandmother into the bathroom and then saw her take her teeth out. I didn't know about false teeth so I reacted pretty much as if she'd removed her head and so I ran screaming. Other than that I don't have any really early memories, they pick up when I was maybe 4 with falling and skinning my knee, and the frightening experience of finding a "bird" hopping up and down in an empty container in the garage (not part of the memory but was a hamster of the neighbor's and my mom returned it home), and a memory of my sister's face bleeding and her wanting to know if I had a tissue, which I did not and left me with a huge feeling of failing my sister in her time of need, and oh the memory of the evil of my grandfather who dumped out my little container of dirt that had my sprouted apple seed.
 
I remember crying... wailing in fact, laying in a stainless steel crib in a hospital, and the nurse (all dressed in white) was pulling hairpins out of her hair in front of a mirror, and dropping the hairpins into a sink below.

My mom told me that nothing of the sorts ever happened, but to this day I swear it happened, and I have often wondered if it relates to my first born days. Seems impossible to me to think that a newborn baby could remember (even see) anything, but I know what I witnessed and remember it like yesterday.

It's a memory I've carried with me my entire life.
 
I also remember tossing my baby bottle out of my crib when an aunt was babysitting me, and turning it into a game, with her getting up over and over again to fetch it, and returning it to me, then no sooner she'd sit down in the living room, which was within my clear view, I'd toss my bottle onto the floor again.
 
HoneyNut said:
My earliest memory was when I was 2 and followed my grandmother into the bathroom and then saw her take her teeth out. I didn't know about false teeth so I reacted pretty much as if she'd removed her head and so I ran screaming. Other than that I don't have any really early memories, they pick up when I was maybe 4 with falling and skinning my knee, and the frightening experience of finding a "bird" hopping up and down in an empty container in the garage (not part of the memory but was a hamster of the neighbor's and my mom returned it home), and a memory of my sister's face bleeding and her wanting to know if I had a tissue, which I did not and left me with a huge feeling of failing my sister in her time of need, and oh the memory of the evil of my grandfather who dumped out my little container of dirt that had my sprouted apple seed.
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sorry I'm not laughing at your last paragraph... but the first part had me laughing out loud.... :ROFLMAO:
 
I think my first one was as an infant. My mother was holding me, my father kept insisting something. Voices were raised somewhat.

Years later, I saw a pic of my mother with her face turned away while holding an infant. She explained my father wanted her to come to the porch with me to finish off a roll of film in the camera but she didn't want her picture taken because it was very early and she wasn't made up yet.
 
Visiting my paternal great grandmother. She died at 103 in1938 so I was less than 5. She was tiny and was in a bed with a thick feather mattress. I was picked up by my mother, sat on the side of her bed and sank into the bedding almost disappearing.
 


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