If you care to play, what is your earliest life memory?

Busting my chin open when I was two years old.  I've had this in my mind my whole life, along with the image of my mother on the other side of the glass as they stitched me up.  In the last few years however a larger portion of the incident has come back into my mind.

It's cold, the heat not working on the second floor of our house.  I'm fresh out of the bath and my mom is drying me off when my brother starts to raise a ruckus in the other room.  She tells me 'Stay right here and don't move at all' and goes off to deal with him.  I stand there and think 'it sure is hard to not move at all, it would be a lot easier if I could hold on to the side of the tub.'  I try to move to the side of the tub, my feet go out from under me, tragedy and sorrow result.

Moral of the story; listen to your mother.

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

I have two very distinct memories, and I'm not sure which came first (I'll have to ask my mum and see if she remembers). One was when a hose burst in our in-wall washing machine and I was playing in the backyard and my mom sudden flung open the sliding glass door and all this water just poured out of the house, down the back step, all onto the lawn. I tried to go running inside with my dog Buffy but she wouldn't let us. She just stood there with a broom trying to push out all this water all over the floor.

The other memory was when we took a walk to the school just up the block from our house. I was wearing a pretty little dress (my mom tried to make me as girlie as possible at that age) and my little black patent leather shoes, and it was a nice sunny day. And I don't recall who was with us...it was my mom and someone else, most likely my grandmother. And we're there at the school on the playground and mom and the other person get distracted and apparently I found this fresh bunch of tar that they had just recently applied underneath the water fountains along the side of the building. By the time my mom had turned around to see what I was doing (this was a matter of minutes, mind you), I had gotten tar in my hair, all over my little white dress, all over my shoes, my hands, my face... yeah. Mom had to chuck my dress and shoes apparently, and then cut my hair really short to get the tar out. The rest was just a hot bath and lots of turpentine that my grandfather had to bring her. Hey, it was the 70's! Bathing your kid in turpentine was acceptable!

I believe I was around 2 at the time of each incident. I would venture to say that the dress incident occurred first, probably at around the 18-21 month mark and the flood incident around the 22-24 month mark.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

What I Remember, hmmm... I had a ruby looking bracelet on 4th grade i think had the doors songs on my mind, my teacher took my bracelet away. cause I was not listening to her topic of the day.

one more thing as I recall my mom came home from the hospital, me and my sis's were playing cards on the floor, mom in bed where she slept, she had white sheets, they turn bloody red, yes, her blood. hemmorage she had, scarey. just not good thing ya wanna see at all.

Wonderful, thank you for sharing!

Another early one, my second clear memory.  It probably took place the summer after the one above.

My mother put me down for my nap and, being the rebellious little shit I remain to this day, I sneaked outside.  While hiding in the bushes I saw a neighbor girl get hit by a car.  I ran back inside and resumed my position on the sofa.  My brother tells me I was greatly upset when a real estate agent took my blanket to wrap the kid up in.  What I remember is being afraid the police who responded to the incident were going to arrest me for sneaking out during my nap.

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

Ben:  "We've laid in a gala reception for your fair-haired boys tonight.  All of Twin Peaks' best and brightest."

Jerry: "We're holding it in a phone booth?"

Geez, Redbear, sit right here on my lap and let me cuddle you!  You have had some traumatic events in your childhood.  What happened to the little girl?  Do you know?  I think it's just criminal that they didn't let your mother hold you while you were getting stitched up.  Mean, mean, mean.  But I'm the type of mom who won't allow the dog groomer to wash and dry Lola the lab without my being there comforting her. 

I can't remember younger than four.  Sitting at the front door waiting for my brother to come home from big boy school.  Learning to print my name but forgetting the sequence of letters.  Leaving a brand new treasured baby doll along the curb, telling her to wait for my return and not knowing it was trash day.  Evil garbageman (or maybe another kid?  who knows?  Life's Loose Ends.) took my doll.  My mother did not replace it.  It was a "lesson" and I did learn that dolls will not follow instructions no matter how clearly you explain it to them. 

Like others I remember that first hospital experience.  Tonsils.  Humiliation of the anal thermometer.  Ether.  Throwing up in the recovery room.  Ice cream to follow.  A few years later telling my sister "Don't worry.  It's not so bad."  She has always held a grudge against me for that misinformation.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

You're on nuart.

The girl, to the best of my knowledge, was fine.  Well not fine but she lived and had no lasting damage.  Yeah, they couldn't let mom in, she was only an RN.  That probably worked against her since she was conditioned to see and treat the doctors as God.  Thank tao we left all that patriarchal BS behind on our march to the truly egalitarian world we live in today.

The whole thing makes me laugh today. It would have been just like me to kick up a fuss over my blanket so that I wouldn't get busted for skipping out on my nap.

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

I hate to say it, but I remember being sexually molested when I was five years old.  It seems like everything before that is kind of blank.  I kind of remember some things.  I remember really wanting to see the movie Popeye.  I am not sure how old I was then.  I remember sneaking out of the house and running naked in the woods with my dogs.  We had a lot of dogs where I lived and for some reason when I was very young I would sneak out of the house and do this.  The neighbors would call and say "Your son is at our house naked again".  I also remember running with the dogs with my clothes on.  :)  There were not many kids were I lived so I spent a lot of time in my imaginary world. 

I do remember once getting lost in the woods and when I got home my parents were really scared.  They were about to call the cops to bring in the helicopters etc..  To look for me.  I remember that day very well.  I think I was around eight years old.  I remember seeing what looked like an Indian buriel.  It may not have been, but it looked that way.  Where I lived people would sometimes find old arrow heads and things like that.  I remember seeing an old log cabin and what looked like a lumber jack chopping wood.  He looked very strong and muscular.  He really stood out because the cabin did not look like it belonged that deep in the woods.  It looked like a cabin that would be in the suburbs or closer to town.  I remember following my dogs back home.  I also seem to remember something about a creek and water.  Something really fasinated me about the creek, but I don't remember what. 

I also remember hating to go to Kindergarden on my first day of school.

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Another early memory I have from kindergarten:

I don't remember how the drama came about, but there was this girl in my class and she said something to me I didn't like.  She had on a new dress, and I pushed her on the blacktop at recess.  Fresh blacktop.  Needless to say, she was a mess.  I knew I was going to get in trouble for this.  She followed me home and told my mom on me.  I remember getting in a lot of trouble for this.  That was the day I learned that you don't push girls. 

For some reason, I was still allowed to push my sister!

Ben:  "We've laid in a gala reception for your fair-haired boys tonight.  All of Twin Peaks' best and brightest."

Jerry: "We're holding it in a phone booth?"

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

When I was about 3, our family was moving across the road and digging a basement for the new house.  I thought it would be fun to slide down the tallest part of the hole.  It was, even if it hurt a little.  

Same year, my niece was born and my mom took me over to my sis's house to see the baby.  I watched my sis change her diaper and was wondering why the baby had a raisin in her belly button.   

I also remember seeing on the news that John Lennon had been shot and being really upset about it. 

Searching for a non trauma induced early memory I had to come pretty far forward;

Date confirmed; Nine years old, listening to the announcement of  Richard Nixons resignation, August 9th, 1974, on the radio while on vacation in Michigan.  This isn't really traumatic, I had voted for him in second grade (He was the president, of course I was going to vote for him, then my brother and his friends tried to coerce me into voting for McGovern and that closed the deal) but wasn't seriously attached to him.

Date unconfirmed; Sitting down to a Saturday (I believe)  night dinner of popcorn and and an apple cut in half (what a treat!) before the T.V. and watching Emergency!, just about the best thing in the world for a 7 to 10 year old boy, if he was me.  Much later in life this show also gave me my favorite brush with fame.  I'm working the front counter at the old job, grab a stack of books from a customer, ring them up, swipe their credit card and checked their name while I was waiting for the transaction to process.  Kevin Tighe, aka Fireman Roy DeSoto.  I start, look over at him and smile.  He smiles back, we finish the transaction and he goes on his way.  I'm not a big celeb worshiper but I liked that one.

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu