Question Of The Day. Saturday The 25th October.

Hi, Happy Saturday. 

Today's question is,

What is your earliest childhood memory?

Mine is of going to the laundrette on a cold, wet day with my Mum and my brother. I remember sitting in the warm, eating Sherbet Dips as we watched our laundry spin around.

These days whenever I go past a laundrette the smell of it gives me a craving for Sherbet Dips again.

I remember being in an open courtyard area with white tables at Disney World just before I turned 2.  I remember holding my Mickey stuffed animal on top of my head, briefly thinking I was lost and also standing on this penguin's feet while he danced as part of a parade.  My Mom has pictures of the parade.  i also remember my little navy blue Mary Jane style shoes.  I can also remember waiting at the airport to leave when my Grandpa brought me my little wings to pin on my shirt.  My Mom and Grandma and I went to Disney together.  I remember the man that sat next to my Mom and I on the way home and walking a few seats back to see my Gram because she had been seated separate from us.  Ooh...I also remember the hotel room in the early morning hours; when it was dark but not so dark I couldn't see around in there.  

Funny; having written that out now, I can vividly see my Grandparents as they were then.  My Grandpa had a plaid shirt on with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hair was a dark silver gray instead of white.  Gram's hair was short but permed and perfect as usual.  She was also more silver than white.     I wish I could rewind them to those days! 

That's a really nice memory. Amazing how much detail you can recall considering how young you were.

My earliest memory couldn't really be one. I shocked my parents as a preschooler by recalling details of a family viewing I "attended" in the womb.

I remember the day we moved into a new house just before I turned two. For some reason I was irritated because the mirror that went above the dining room buffet hadn't been hung yet, but pleased that I could see myself twirling in front of it.

jcat said:

My earliest memory couldn't really be one. I shocked my parents as a preschooler by recalling details of a family viewing I "attended" in the womb.

I remember the day we moved into a new house just before I turned two. For some reason I was irritated because the mirror that went above the dining room buffet hadn't been hung yet, but pleased that I could see myself twirling in front of it.

Click to expand...

I have a similar situation. A little background: My grandmother was really my great-grandmother. Her child, Annabelle, gave birth to my mother. But Annabelle was killed in a car accident when Mom was seven. And Grandma adopted Mom. That's why she was so elderly even when I was born; she was really my great-Grandma. She died at the age of 96, I think, when I was 27 years old. 

Anyway, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. When we first moved back home from North Carolina (Dad was in the Marines and I was born at Camp LeJeune), we stayed with Grandma until my parents could find a house. And I spent all of my school vacations with Grandma. Anyway, I can remember awakening in the middle of the night when I was very young and needing to go to the bathroom. Grandma and I went outside to the outside bathroom (essentially two holes in the barn....you know the type. An outhouse). But Grandma's house, like many houses "back in the day", didn't have an inside bathroom.

My mother swore up and down that that never happened. By the time Mom was born, Grandma had an indoor bathroom. I remember the inside bathroom. It was gigantic by even today's standards, seriously huge. A huge claw-foot bathtub, bathroom sink, etc. Two large windows. And it had a huge walk-in closet that went the entire length of the bathroom with double doors at each end of the closet. My cousin and I used to play hide'n'seek in the closet.

But I'm telling you that Grandma had to take me outside to the outdoor bathroom at night and we did that for quite a while, even during the day. There was no indoor bathroom. None. Mom says no way, it didn't happen and it never happened. The only person who should remember the outdoor bathroom was my mother's birth mother, Annabelle. When Annabelle was little, she was the one who had to use the outdoor bathroom and she was the last child to use it. By the time my mother was born, there was an indoor bathroom.

Yet, I remember it. Vividly. And it always gave my mother the creeps when I'd talk about it. She always yelled at me about it and we'd argue. Grandma says we never did it. But I remember. And I was really, really small. (I started kindergarten when I was four and it was way before that.)

Wow, that's amazing!

I wonder what the explanation for that is? Maybe you saw photos of old out-houses or heard your Great Grandma talking about it and your imagination put it all together as a real memory? Or maybe some of Annabelle's memories were still hanging around after she'd gone.