Earliest Memory - Page 2

[Mama Lori]

I have 2 earliest memories, I'm not sure which one came first. They both happened when I must have been two or three.

My dad came into my bedroom to say goodnight to me. Before he came in, I jumped off the bed and hid behind my green plastic dimpled wastebasket. He pretended to not see me, and to look for me, saying "where's Lori?" I remember knowing that he was pretending. I remember this happening every night when I went to bed.

The other memory is my mom, my older brother and I were in my brother's bedroom. My mom was playing with him. I wandered out into the hallway and hid behind the thick gold drapes (this was 1973). My mom came out into the hallway, obviously knowing where I was because of the big lump in the drapes. She said "Lori, come out of the drapes!" and I said "No, I don't want to." She then got very excited, saying it was my first sentence.

Actually there is a third memory, not sure of the sequence, but also around the same age. My parents were taking a nap, and my brother was watching me in the family room. He was four years older. I decided to rock in the big black wooden rocking chair that was foolishly positioned right in front of a big aquarium. I rocked very forcefully and smashed that aquarium to pieces. Water and fish were everywhere. I was freaked out but nobody was mad at me. My parents and the man from next door had buckets all over the kitchen floor filled with water to try and save the fish. The man was putting the buckets in the back of his truck, and they said he was taking them to the pet store. I remember the fish flipping and flopping in the yellow plastic buckets, wondering if they would stay alive or not.

[writermommy]

My earliest memory is the birth of my younger brother. I was two years old. I remember talking to my mother on the phone. Crying for her. Back then, siblings couldn't visit the hospital. I remember standing on the sidewalk and waving to my mother. She was at the window.

I remember my brother coming home. I was sitting on the white leather sofa and my mother put him in my arms. I remember how soft he was and how good he smelled. As I gazed at his tiny fingers, I fell in love with newborn babies. They are still my favorite thing on this planet. A true miracle.

[noorjahan]

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[corwinegall]

my first memory

I always thought my first memory was a dream, until I mentioned it to my mom one day, how this dream was so real and I didn't know when I had it. Turns out it really happened. She says I was about 6 months old. I remember getting onto a train, being carried by my uncle Chris. I remember coming into the car, going down the isle and sitting down. I remember it was brown, and it was light outside-I don't remember anything being said, and I don't remember anyone else in particular, just that the car had other people on there. I don't know how much of that memory has been touched up by subconscious imagination now that I know it's real. Almost like the memory has been touched up by photoshop, lol, but at the time he had a beard-which wasn't how I knew him as a child, and I didn't ride trains often growing up.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Not sure about the realities of the original fact and here is why. My oldest son is 24, and about a year ago, we visited a house. We shifted from that house when he was three, so according to that theory, he wouldn't remember certain things.

When we came home he commented on the wallpaper in the room being the same that was in our bedroom in the house. It was me that didn't remember, and I couldn't find any photos of that room, so we went through our negatives (we never throw out negatives, and only print the decent photos) and found one which would show the wallpaper. We printed it, and sure enough, he was correct.

The other thing he said out of the blue when I asked him what else he remembered was that the high up cupboard in that room was where I kept the boxes of toys... we would rotate some of them to create "variety" if needed. He also remembered tring to take apart the vacuum cleaner with a screw driver at the age of 15 months, and not being happy when his father put it back together again, and put a lock on the vacuum cleaner door. We had to keep a few other things in there too, because he was forever taking everything apart.

He also remembered climbing up on a stool, table up to a filing cabinet and small bookcase, to get to a clock right near the ceiling. I remember that too. I walked in as he was right up there, my heart stopped and I shut my gob and said nothing in case I gave him a fright. when he had finished, he calmly asked to be lifted down and never went up there again.

He also remembers that in that house we tied the stool legs to the table legs to stop him using them to climb up book cases.

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MY own first memory. According to my father I was three. I was playing on a high set of stairs with a slinky, which is a coil that when you tip it off a step, it loops down the stair case.

It didn't go, so I leaned over to see why and I went instead. I hit my head on some bannisters and landed up at the bottom having gone 16 steps, and just as I landed there, the local priest walked in the front door. All I could see what this black silouette of a person with a hood up, and I screamed and lost consciousness.

I also associated a certain smell with this, and it wasn't until much later when I had an injury that required a certain type of paste that I said..."Hey I know that smell" and was told that that was what was used on my forehead.

[MamaKalena]

This took some time. It was hard to differentiate between my own memories and the ones I've learned through looking at photos. So as I scrolled through my rolodex of early memories, the only one which I can actually taste, feel and hear all at once is when I was maybe two years old.

My dad, mom, sister and I had just moved to the area and were living with my grandparents temporarily until we found a place of our own. I've titled it, "French Fries."

While I don't recall much of their house or anything we did while we were there, I can very clearly see myself sitting on the floor with a greasy brown bag of fries. I remember that they were always salted and soft and wilted, not crispy like the ones you get at McDonalds. Apparently, my grandma worked part-time at some fast-food joint and would always bring us kids a bag of fries after her shift.

I've loved french fries as long as I can remember, especially the greasy wilted ones, and now I know why.