Terminalcoffee discussion

What's your earliest memory?

I remember, at age three or so, a few glimpses of a house in Elmwood Park, Illinois, from which my family soon moved. It was Halloween, or near Halloween, and my brother was telling me about witches and I thought I saw cartoon witches flying around on brooms around the trees outside my window. And I remember the stairway, too, long and narrow with a baby gate (presumably for me) at the bottom.

I'm fascinated by the fact we are so influenced by our initial years on the planet but can't remember much of them.

I remember my grandmother's cat scratching me on the chin when I tried to pick it up. I had to be around three because I was wearing my blue Cookie Monster coat at the time.

Another early one is playing in my sandbox and having a walking stick crawling on my neck. I think that one is from when I was four.

I have memories back to the age of three - we lived in a house on Highland Park at the time. I remember: getting stung by a wasp while swinging, throwing up in the hallway one night, clogging the toilet with toilet paper (like many children, I was fascinated with the who flushing thing), and the pine trees my mom planted there (one for me and one for my brother - they are now HUGE trees).

i have a few memories from when i was three, most of them involve cookies, some books and in one i almost ran into a parked car with my bicycle. i didn't mind, but my mother wasn't very happy. i also have a lot of memories from when i was four and spent 11 days in hospital because they thought i had epilepsy and wanted to run tests. because i was so young i sometimes don't know which of these hospital memories are real and which ones are dreams (or nightmares). there are some other memories from when i was three that are probably not real, one about gigantic butterflies in my bedroom and one where i literally scratch open my entire legs and there's a lot of blood.

I remember sitting in my high chair, and my dad trying to feed me instant mashed potatoes... and being grossed out. Not sure how old I was...

I recall seeing Jaws at the movie theatre when I was 3 years old. That scene where Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss' character) is met underwater and unexpectedly by that floating human head scared the living bejeebus out of everyone, yet I laughed and laughed and laughed.

I remember my grandmother's house, and the big trees lining the street, arching over the top to make a green shady tunnel. Mom and I lived there when I was two, while my dad was stationed in Korea for a year.

I remember being in the hospital to get my tonsils out when I was 2 years old. I remember that I had my Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls with me in the crib and the nurse giving me and another little kid a ride around the hallway in a little red wagon.

I have a memory that I asked my mom about to see if it was real. My brother was an infant, so I must have been 3. We went to go visit a nun that was a friend of my mother's family so she could meet my new baby brother. I had to check to see if it was a real memory because we aren't Catholic and don't usually socialize with nuns. Apparently this nun lived next door to my mother's family when she was very young.

I remember standing up in my crib and looking out the window. I think it was very early in the morning because the light was dawnzerly (that's for all you old folks who remember the Ramona and Beezus books).

I remember the upstairs hallway of our house in Niagara Falls (where we lived until I was three), and the first floor layout of the houses of three neighbors and my grandmother. First floor layout was important because one of them gave me cookies in the kitchen, another gave me candy from a jar in the living room. Ya had to know where the good stuff was.

Hissssss! Tattler.


I have a memory of laying in my crib, crying and wanting my mom so badly, and a babysitter covering me up with a blue blanket. My mom says I can't possibly remember this but I do.

My first memory would be of my twin childhood bestfriends. They were in infant car seats and I was "watching" them for their mom who is friends with my mom. I'm only a little over a year older than them so I must have been 18 months to 2 years old. I have other memories from their old house, they moved out of it when I was maybe 4.