What is your earliest memory and how old were you?

[mollipops]

Have been thinking on this for a while, after a friend told me she clearly remembers her 4th birthday party, and another said she remembers her 6th birthday since her dad kept teasing her saying "You're sick?" every time she said she was six.

My earliest memory is a sound - mum shuffling down the long lino passage from her bedroom to the kitchen in the mornings, her slippers sliding along inch by inch. She was paralysed in a car accident - doctors had told her she wouldn't walk again but she proved them wrong! Mum tells me I would have been about 2 at the time. My first birthday party I remember I think I was about 4 too (combined with my brother's birthday party - see Xmas due date thread!).

It made me realise that my children may well remember things that happen, and that we do together, good or bad, from around the ages they are now...which made me aware that I should try to make them positive wherever possible!

I can vaguely remember the pet shop where we bought the rabbit for my third birthday. But this is a very dim memory. I cannot remember my sister being born or even as a baby (ie pre-walking) although I was 3.5 when she was born. But I can remember the bedroon with the cot and bunk beds in (all threee of us shared). I remember walking on the frosty wall accompanied by my entire family on my first day at school aged 4.75.

Mine is of being in a powder blue cot with an animal motif on the end - one of those cutesy fluffy big eyed black and white kittens. I was in a room with my brothers on holiday and they were in bunk beds, which the younger of them kept falling out of. As I'm in a cot and after discussing with my mother where we must have been, I put this memory at around 2, maybe 18 months. It's pretty much a "snapshot" memory in that I have a picture in my mind of the inside of the cot together with the idea that my brother kept falling out of bed, there is no movement or sound.

I also remember having stitches removed from my big toe after treading on a metal spade buried in the sand by one of my dear, darling brothers. I don't remember the spade incident, just having the stitches removed. This is from the same time period although it may be a wee bit earlier.

I have an odd memory of walking outside of our house at approx. 18 months or 2 years old in a particular outfit (white top and diaper cover with little pink flowers). I have pictures of myself in the outfit, so I'm not sure if I developed the memory from seeing the pictures.

One memory of the back door and garden of a house we left when I was 2 and a half, another of having a shower in an outdoor shower at Kati Kati (a hot springs resort in NZ)when I was 3.

I remember having my photo taken in the bath by my godmother - strange person with her hair in a french pleat leaning right over the bath, her husband there too all crammed into a very small bathroom. I look very puzzled in the photo, and about 2

Sitting in the bath looking up at Mum & Dad and them taking a photo - I'd have been about 15/8 months.
Though, like chiarasmom, I'm not sure if the memory is constructed. The resultant photo is a family favourite (with everyone but me) and so I could have built up the image from there, though I do see Dad with dark hair and he went grey as sson as my sister was born (before I was 3) so if it is a construction, its a clever one for a young child to do.

I meant 15-18 mnths

At 2.5 remember looking through a round window to see my baby sister in the maternity ward. Also, about the same time, being dressed in plastic bags (it was raining and no waterproofs at the time) to take new sister to doctors in a big burgundy pram!

My earliest memory is at 18 months old of being in hospital in a cot after having a birth mark removed from my lip. I have an absolute picture memory of it in my mind, I was wearing a long white nightdress, had a doll's house to play with and was given jelly and ice-cream to eat.

My earliest memory is from about 18 months. I remember driving round a safari park on a family holiday and the monkeys climbing onto the bonnet of the car, which was quite scarey! I don't remember anything else about the trip or the safari park, just a snapshot memory of that one event. I presume it stuck because I was frightened - bit depressing really, but it seems now that I think about it that all my early snapshot memories, all about pre-4years old, are of things that scared me (for example, big brother who was 10 years older used to hold me at the top of the stairs and threaten to throw me down - only in play but I always took him seriously). I can vividly remember my dad being furious with me for drawing on the walls and at the time I was being told off, knowing that I'd done something wrong but somehow not fully understanding or not being able to apply this knowledge at the time when I was doing the drawing. Can't explain that properly, but can remember how I felt and it's interesting now when you think about the age at which your child can fully understand right and wrong (not sure how old I was though - 2-3 maybe).

Can now recollect going in the seat on top of the silver cross pram. This must be pre my second sister being born. And can also remember carry cot on its stand in the living room. But no memory of sister in it....

Being in my mother's arms in our kitchen and reaching into a very sticky bag of dates which sported a brightly coloured picture of the Sphinx on it. Think I was around 18 months and I still love dates.

LizC, my brother(younger!) used to hold me upside down by my ankles over the bannisters and threaten to drop me. I can't actually remember how old I was, or why I didn't put up much of a fight....

Standing on the stairs, aged 3 and a bit with my brother (nearly 2), crying because we had woken up and Mum & Dad had "disappeared". They'd apparently just popped out for two minutes. I can remember them opening the door, and seeing it dark outside and a big tree on the other side of the road.

Next memory is not long afterwards, at our next house (which is how I can "place" them) having an argument over the fence at the bottom of the graden with the kids from the house next door. They were being nasty to us because we weren't "good enough - we were renting and (worse) we were "foreigners" (not long arrived from South Africa).

I've got loads of memories from 4 onwards - the preparatory visit to primary school, opening Christmas presents, getting a new cat, losing my Sindy doll, finding my Sindy doll after a night out in the rain ....

I can remember being teased a lot at primary school for having a silly surname and being foreign, which I could never understand because I felt Scottish!

I have a picture memory of dark leaves against a blue sky. I was put under the apple tree in the garden in our pram to nap every day, and I suppose that must have been the view on waking.
My earliest experience memory is that of getting into huge trouble after "helping" mum make pastry. I had a lump of my own to play with and I sauntered into the newly decorated sitting room and stuck the pastry to the wallpaper. It left a hideous greasy stain and I got such a telling off. I would have been three at the time.

Sitting on the front garden in the snow aged about 2, crying because my mum had gone in and shut the door ( because I refused to come in), and around the same age in the summer, walking to the end of the road with my brother and sister and seeing a cow in a field for the first time.

I was at nursery. I was sitting on my own and saw a little girl and boy playing with a dolls house, I desperately wanted to play with the dolls house too but the boy wouldn't play with me and shoved me away.

Little git!

Not that you hold a grudge, Rhubarb...

Sobernow,what's the story go on tell us.
I can remember being a toddler and my Dad walking with my feet on his.I had just started school and this little boy used to hit me in the playground,I remember standing there while he did it and saying to him"Why are you hitting me?"When I told my mum about him she cornered him and threatened him with the police.I think I was 4 when I asked my Nan for a spell book,she thought I meant a spelling book but I wanted to do some magic spells and I remember the conversation quite well.Also,feel a bit guilty about this one.I told my Dad when I was about 4 when we were walking down the street and this man smiled at me.I told my Dad that he always smiles at me and my Dad told him to "just p* off" Hmmm.

We were sailing back from Australia, came through the Panama Canel and stopped at the Dutch Antilles. We were in a market, I was on my Dad's shoulders when my mam called me and this other woman answered. As I have quite an unusual name it was a surprise to find anyone else called the same thing. I was nearly 4.

This is a bit bizarre but I remember trying to clean like our cleaning lady. I still remember the feeling of irritation that after she had handed me my polishing cloth (balled up to get a pad for polishing) I couldn't quite hold it and it would always unfold and I would have to get her to ball it up again for me. According to my mother, polishing with the cleaning lady was a pre-nursery school activity and I went to nursery school at 2.5yrs.

Sobernow, was it your grandfather? Why did your Mum faint? I am intrigued...

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Well now this is a bit of a relief, because I thought I was quite wierd in having a number of clear memories that are younger than 2 (We moved house when I was 2 so it's easy to locate them).

For example, my 2nd birthday party, being told to 'eat your crusts, it will make your hair curly' (anyone else get told this particular bit of nonsense?), running out into our basement yard with my mum's dogs (large bloodhound, quite memorable!) and very excitingly eating an entire bottle of junior aspirin and getting my stomach pumped (ok I don't remember the stomach pump, as they were kind enough to give me a sedative).

Makes me feel all warm and happy just remembering this (not the stomach pump, obviously )