First thing you can remember
 

As far back as my memory goes... I remember telling my mom parts of a story I made up as she wrote them down. I think it was probably for school, but I'm not sure.

How about you?

We used to have this huge sideboard like radio & record player thing. I'd spend hours in there playing all my mum & dad's records I can't have been more than 3 years old at the time.

I have a lot of long-ago childhood memories (it's the short term ones that I'm not so good with).
The first is me jumping from the couch into a bunch of empty paper grocery bags after my mom had come back from grocery shopping. It was the most fun I ever had. I was 3.

That's funny, I think I must have been about 3 as well.

I vaguely remember the day my sister was born, which was a couple of weeks before my third birthday.

I remember riding some plastic tricycle thing in Malden in west London, on the road outside my Grandma's house. I was 2 at the time, I think.

My cats. I have no idea how old I was, so I was probably 3

I remember waking up from a nap on a weekend, going to the front window in our house, and staring out at my dad working the yard in the sun. I don't know how old, but I swear I was in diapers (I don't think people remember that far back, but I could swear).

I have a lot of memories from when I was very young. I can't really tell which one was first.

This really got me thinking.
My father used to work away from home a lot and we very rarely saw him.
The memories of him coming home one time.

It wasn't until about 5 minutes ago while I was reading through some of the posts that I realised what my earliest memory was.
It's probably the first time I've recalled it.

Me too, but I'm not very good at putting them in order.

Edit: Or, what he said:

My first memory was when I was standing outside my bathroom (which is directly at the top of my stairs) waiting on my mum, I stepped back a few times and fell down the stairs. I reeeally hurt myself also. Or the time we bought my first dog I remember the car journey home with her, I was about 3/4 in each of them.

That reminds me of another memory I have, I can't quite recall if it came before the other one though. I remember my siblings and I having to be quite because my father worked the nightshift and slept most of the day.

walking on the side of my grandparents house and looking at a purple cup sitting on a stump.

Crawling on my Mom's belly in the bathtub.

I think my earliest memory is me asking my mom how old I was. She told me I was three and a quarter. I remember I had no idea what the "and a quarter" meant and I had a mental image myself walking down the street flipping a 25 cent coin.

It's strange how most people retain very early memories throughout the years that seem to have little significance in a person's life.
You would think that deeply imprinted memories from early childhood would be of something intensely memorable or at least very distinct or unique, but it's usually quite the opposite and mundane.

Anyone have any ideas as to why that is?

It's probably because young children have very little frame of reference for what is significant since everything is so brand new to them.

Took me awhile to figure it out but I think my earliest memory was taking off in a plane to go to Disney Land with my mum when I was 3.

I practically lived in Disney World Ocala when I was that age.

Makes sense, but why only isolated incidents of mundane activities? Why not a lot more than you typically hear about or personally remember?

It just seems strange how a person can, for example, remember drinking from a red cup and not remember eating from a blue plate when both experiences may be equally mundane in an adult's perspective, but significant in a child's.
I just use that example as a comparison to the memory patterns you see and how they seem randomly selective.

It's interesting.

I have a lot of memories that I'm not sure actually happened or were dreamt. I remember my dreams very well and still remember childhood dreams I've had, but they're just as blurry now as the memories, so I'm always in a position that causes me to challenge whether half my childhood memories ever really happened to begin with.

Me too. I don't know if the things i remember from that far back are real or just dreams. I also don't really remember anything between the ages of 5-7 other than experiences at school. Weird.

The earliest memory I have actually wasn't all that mundane. I remember running to the laundry room to talk to my mom, where there's a step going down, and accidentally stepping on my 1 year old sister's head. I guess I must have been a little over 3 at the time.

Freebase Dali makes a good point though, besides that the things I remember are things like banging on a little toy drum we had, watching Sesame Street, eating brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts, and sitting in the backyard. These aren't things that you would think would be particularly memorable.

I was trying to get my cat to eat his cat food so I crawled in and ate some to show that it tasted good. That's the logic of a 2 year old.. or 1? I really don't know. I just know I had a blue shirt on and a diaper and couldn't walk.

It was my 3rd Birthday (so I was exactly 3 years old obviously) and my mum was telling me to stand up on a chair to blow out my candles.

Oh, and I was wearing red jeans.

Christmas 1989. I was 3 years old. I remember my father carrying me from bed to the Christmas tree where my baby brother was already opening gifts.

3 seems to be the magic number here eh?

Earliest I can remember is 3 or 4, running to jump on my dad who was laying on the couch. I busted my lip on the button of his shirt. It was one of those pearl snap shirts.

I also have vague memories of rubbing my parents vinyl records against the textured wall in our apartment. Would have to have been around 4/5 then. Needless to say, they were not pleasantly surprised when they went to play those.

From what I know, studies have showed that at 3 years, the baby develops his longterm memory.

Of course, it differs from a person to another, but I alway found it curious how the first thing I remember was exactly after three years from my birth. (as the studies had shown I mean)

I remember my parents telling me how when I was really young (too little to remember doing this), I was outside and was playing when I eventually made my way into my neighbor's backyard. I then had to take a piss, so being a little kid, I just dropped my pants and pissed. I didn't realize I was pissing on large backyard Jesus statue. They are a really religious family, so ever since then, they sort of hated me and my family... I look back on it and laugh.

haha that made me laugh quite a bit. :)

I have a flash of a memory that must have been when I was 2. I was on the changing table. My mom left for some reason and I rolled over and fell, but I managed to cling to one of the vertical changing table legs so I stopped myself right before I would have hit the floor. Either I was 2 or I wore diapers for a long time! :-)

I have many more memories when I was 3 or 4 and it is hard to know which is first:
--Seeing my dad, hunkered over an old sewing machine, sewing me a Halloween cat costume.
--Watching my dad's gold fish Ernest swim around in a bowl on my dad's bedside stand. Ernest had porcelain coral to swim through and some fungal disease eating his fins. My dad gave him medicine baths to try to cure him.
--Lying in my crib looking up through toy animals at the light filtering down. I guess the room I shared with my older brother didn't have space for 2 beds, so I was stuck in the crib for a long time.
--Watching headless chickens run around in the yard after some neighbor men cut off the chickens' heads. I remember being afraid of the men and horrified for the chickens.
--Sniffing my blanket named "Yucky" after sucking it. Ah, Yucky!

That is interesting- and I never really thought of that. I don't have an answer, but the stuff that gets stored in our long-term memory is stuff that's important- and stuff that's checked in on more often than not (maintaining the neural connections). There wouldn't be neural connections to these random isolated events when we're 3, 4, 5 unless they were somehow important.

Either that, or maybe the things we're remembering are actually dreams, and no reality- or something like that.

That reminds me- I remember the first dream I recalled in my life... I had this dream multiple times, and I think the first time was as a toddler: I'm in my living room, and there's a giant fly (like 8 feet long) on the ceiling, and it flies down towards me and I run away. Recurring dream, starting roughly age 3.

Being on hols at Ben Nevis and Fort William

I had to write an essay on my earliest memory at school once, i could only write a few sentences about the above, hmm what the **** its all i could remember. Freak teacher wanted 1.5 pages

I said do you want me to make some crap up, its all i can feckin remember

Got in a lot of **** for that comment, now i'm 37 i feel like paying my english teacher a visit, purely to test their memory of my subsequent detention

Hehe... that sucks man.
Could it be that the teacher wanted you to analyze the memory, or was that not part of the script at all?
If not, that teacher needs a good, memorable kick to the balls/tits - respectively.

the first thing i really remember is a pair of zebra striped sunglasses with little zebra heads at the corners

i was three maybe four and had falled down on some slippery rocks at landa park in new brunsfuls (its a natural swimmin hole),...i skinned my nose all up and had two black eyes,....i looked like my momma had beat the hell outa me
she bought me the glasses and told me not to take them off when we went into place, though i quickly learned that if i would let them slide down the bridge of my scabby nose and batt my eyelashes at people i could get sympathy and often times candy

i also remember being about the same age and sneeking down the stairs at my grandmothers house so that i could listen to the adults play cards as i was supposed to be asleep,...my great grandfather caught me and said 'sally girl you better get up there to bed', to which i put my hands on my hips and retorted "pappa you dont scare me wortha damn"

Ha! Very cute and sassy retort, Savannah. :laughing:

My first memory is of mixing up Jesus with Santa Claus, in an odd way. I was about 2-3. We had a crucifix on the wall in our home, and sometimes I'd blow a kiss toward it and and say, "I love you, Aunt Cross". My mother corrected me and said, "That's Jesus, not Santa Claus" (thinking I was mispronouncing "Santa Claus" by saying "Aunt Cross"). But what I really thought was that Jesus was an "Aunt", because he had long hair, who was on a "Cross". Eventually I caught on to the Jesus/Santa Claus connection, having nothing to do with aunthood.

I remember when my sister was born and my dad was sitting on the windowsill in the room and when the doctor came in I crawled behind him because I was scared.
Also I remember walking around in my baby walker in the kitchen while my mom cooked dinner. Can't remember what came first, I was around 3 years old.

I can also remember being at my grandmas house for thanksgiving and I was in her relatively large kitchen along with other members from the family and my younger cousins. we were sliding back and forth on the wood floor. The only other thing I remember that night is the entire family (probably 20 some people) gathering in the large semi vacant play room to eat dinner. I remember there being tables set up I had never saw before and never saw again.

I can also remember sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge with the door open putting my army men inside to play with them.

My earliest memory just hit me. I was 2 years old and had cancer and was in the hospital. I remember laying under this enormous machine getting ready to have anesthesia performe don me. I was scared as all hell and I remember my mom holding my hand as I drifted off to sleep.
I remember another time while they were performing anesthesia on me while I was around 2 I can recall the doctor putting the cup over my mouth and me starring up at himand the 5 other people looking down upon me and seeing everything go red and hearing their voices fade out.

What a terrible trauma for you to endure at 2 years of age, BTown. I can't even imagine what that must have been like for you and your family. You must have been a really strong little guy and I'm so glad you made it through that awful time. All my very best to you.

Haha, I go there every Summer.