What are the earliest things in your life that you can remember?

[Formaldehyde]

I remember quite a bit from when I was 3 while living in base housing at Fort Knox.

I remember what the housing units looked like and the backyard area where we all played.

I took apart a gas meter with my plastic wrench set. Instead of getting in a lot of trouble, my parents were secretly impressed. I overheard them talking about me from my bedroom window as the repair man put it back together.

I got scolded for playing with a black kid my age because my parents thought that couldn't happen as long as I didn't cross the street due to the segregated housing. He crossed the street to play. Not me. That was the first and last black kid I ever played with.

I got stung by a bee that didn't hurt.

I remember when my brother was brought back from the hospital after he was born.

I remember a Lionel train I got for Christmas.

And I remember repeatedly sticking my finger in electrical sockets. Yeah. I know. That explains a lot.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I remember steeling some toy from kindergarten when I was, I guess, 3 or 4. I had this feeling I am doing something wrong but I liked the toy so I tried to take it anyway but I was caught by my mom when she came to pick me up. Luckily later on in my life I turned a new leaf...

 

[Miles Teg]

Third birthday. My parents were trying to throw a party for me, and I was worried about growing up and threw a temper tantrum. I went outside to pout on the front porch. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that there probably wasn't anything I could do about the aging process, and that this was my only chance to get cake and toys out of it. So I went back inside.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Worried about age when you are three years old? :/

I recall thinking, when i was in the first grade(s) of elementary school, that i still probably had up to 80-90 years to live. I thought that most people died at a set distance of time from when they were born. Imagining i had around 10 times more to live than what was already experienced by me at the time, seemed pretty decent.

 

[Miles Teg]

I think I had pretty blown up ideas of what was expected of three year olds.

I don't remember it, but I'm told that when I was two I freaked out at bath time when my hair or face was washed. The night after my third birthday, apparently I stuck my head underwater to prove I was too mature to get upset over that anymore.

 

[Traitorfish]

You sound like you a very serious toddler!

 

[Zelig]

I remember having pizza for supper last night.

I can't really tell how much is memory and how much is memory of stories.

I'm not sure there's a particularly meaningful distinction between the two.

And I remember repeatedly sticking my finger in electrical sockets. Yeah. I know. That explains a lot.

What kind of electrical sockets are compatible with children's fingers?

 

[Dachs]

I'm not sure there's a particularly meaningful distinction between the two.

You don't think there's a meaningful difference between personal experience of an event and somebody telling you about an event?

 

[timtofly]

Especially when it comes to eating pizza.

 

[Zelig]

You don't think there's a meaningful difference between personal experience of an event and somebody telling you about an event?

I don't know that there's a meaningful difference between something you remember happening, and something you think you remember happening, but which your brain pieced together from what other people told you about the event.

 

[Angst]

Getting beaten and yelled at. Don't remember why.

 

[Goodfella]

I watched a movie called MouseHunt in kindergarten or possibly before then and in the movie an old man who was a string manufacturer passed away and I got seriously scared about death for a good week. It was probably the earliest time I experienced depressing thoughts. I kept thinking about how I was already around five and that my life would probably be ending a lot sooner than I'd expect and that I'd die and life would go on without me and that once my grandchildren passed away, there would be no one around who even knew that I ever existed. But after a few days I stopped caring and went back to thinking about other things like Godzilla toys.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I distinctly remember the color/pattern of the rug rushing up at me as I stumbled before I put my hands out and caught myself. I would have been about one. Or it might have been last Friday night.

 

[REDY]

I remember some outing in pram with mother and grandmother, but it seems that suspicious that I am not sure if it wasnt just dream from childhood. I also remember how I was in "child cage" and waiting on parents and come of grandmother. I remember how I in Kindergarden injured my teacher with hockey stick (accident!) and how I was playing on doctor with girls.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

.... and how I was playing on doctor with girls.

I almost forgot this one...

 

[azzaman333]

I have a vague memory of hitting my chin on the metal edge of a trampoline sometime before primary school.

I distinctly remember slicing my thumb open on a ring pull can, being rushed to the doctor and needing stitches for it. Im pretty sure that came after the trampoline incident, but was still before i was at school. It resulted in a fear of opening ring pull cans and easily being able to tell left from right (left thumb has a scar, right doesn't).

 

[Formaldehyde]

What kind of electrical sockets are compatible with children's fingers?

From what I remember, the plastic on the sockets wasn't as deep as it is now. So you could jam your finger in there and make contact with the metal.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I have a vague memory of hitting my chin on the metal edge of a trampoline sometime before primary school.

I distinctly remember slicing my thumb open on a ring pull can, being rushed to the doctor and needing stitches for it. Im pretty sure that came after the trampoline incident, but was still before i was at school. It resulted in a fear of opening ring pull cans and easily being able to tell left from right (left thumb has a scar, right doesn't).

I've got a similarly early memory of a trip to the ER for stitches. Such things will leave an impression on a two-year old.

 

[Yeekim]

The oldest memories I can date with accuracy are from a trip to Black Sea coast when I was two and half...back in the summer of ´87.