[Jane Sherwood]

The earliest thing I can remember is...my third birthday exactly, or at least, a few moments of it...after that it's just random images, bits of dialogue, and a few highly embarrassing scenes from elementary school.

Actually, the same goes for the rest of my life up until...a few months ago. Now that I really thing about it, I believe my chronic absent-mindedness has become a bit of a problem if everything becomes a blur so quickly after it happens.



(EDIT: Oooh! Soothsayer! Niftiness!)

This post has been edited by Jane Sherwood: 14 June 2004 - 08:08 AM

[barend]

earliest memory:David Bowie on TV!!!
I remember alot of my early, early childhood. and i'm glad for it...
all other memories suck...

i'm proud to say, i never put anything in my mouth that didn't belong there!!!

post album/movie sticker grit: yeah, my arch nemiesiesesss of the aesthetic kind... that totally blows... A store Utopia in Sydney went through a phase of useing these gian security stickers that where a square inch and made out of a thin foil that was like a square spiral that came of one strand at a time... it took hours to remove...

breast holding: fun to do, boring to watch...

barend out...

This post has been edited by barend: 14 June 2004 - 08:30 AM

[Heccubus]

breast holding: fun to do, boring to watch...

Hear hear.

I guess I will throw in my earliest memory, since it seems like something to do on an otherwise boring Monday morning.
The earliest thing that I remember clearly is being ushered out of the house at 6 years old while my father packed his things to leave. I had not the slightest idea as to what was happening, and I remember it taking me several days to grasp the fact that he was not coming back home.
I agree fully with Reader in some respects. I enjoy having people tell me what I was like as a lad, rather than trying to recall on my own. Having my mom tell me that I was hyperactive at home, but quiet and shy in public is always nice. Helps me to remember that I was one of few who wasn't a screaming brat as a youth.

[Just your average movie goer]

Cool. Thanks for those thoughts, guys. Jane - you've done better than me if you can remember your third birthday. I have nothing in my brain from under the age of four.

Barend, those metallic labels that you have to take off strand by strand sound exactly like the ones I got on my DVDs recently. These broke up into lots of individual little squares. They were terrible and I took a night off and came back to remove them the next day, they took so long.

breast holding: fun to do, boring to watch...

barend out...

You summed it up nicely, my friend.

[Just your average movie goer]

Helps me to remember that I was one of few who wasn't a screaming brat as a youth.

It is really re-assuring to be know that, isn't it? I sure as hell was grateful when my parents told me that I wasn't one of those screaming toddlers. Very grateful.

[Heccubus]

Jane - you've done better than me if you can remember your third birthday.  I have nothing in my brain from under the age of four.

I agree. That is, actually, quite remarkable, Jane. Details schmetails, the earliest birthday that I remember is my 8th.

[Jane Sherwood]

It's not that big, all I can really remember of it is opening a present and getting a Barbie doll. I also kind of remember a few bits from when I was learning how to read, write, and count before kindergarten. I remember bursting into tears when I about six years old during math class because something confused the hell out of me, what exactly, I don't know anymore. And at one point, during the same year, drawing Ninja Turtles on one of my old friend's brand new white shoes with crayons because he thought they were "too girly" (the principal caught us doing this but laughed about it, he said he was going to go home and draw Ninja Turtles on his shoes too because it was such a good idea. I liked that guy.)


Now that I think about...I remember a lot, actually. Hmmm...

[Just your average movie goer]

It's not that big, all I can really remember of it is opening a present and getting a Barbie doll.

But it's still pretty amazing, considering that people like myself can't remember anything at all from when we were three.

[looktothesky]

Now that I think about...I remember a lot, actually. Hmmm...

That is a lot! I only vaguely remember when I was little (no idea how old I was) living in an apartment, but I really remember preschool.

[Chyld]

I have vague flashes. Running somewhere and playing with sand when I was in preschool. Wetting myself in the lower years of school (oops). Sitting in the car on my older brothers first day at school, and thinking my mum had driven off in someone elses car. Being put into my cot. And from somewhere else, a large window.

Quite a lot, actually. I'm quite disconcerted.

[Just your average movie goer]

Man, I'm glad I'm not alone in the wetting myself in the early years. I can't figure out why the hell that happened - was I afraid to ask the teacher if I could go to the loo or something? Beats me.

I can recall quite a lot from Primary School when I try - but for the life of me, I can't get anything from under the age of four... ANYTHING! It's like I just emerged in this world as a pre-aged four year old or something and by-passed the preceeding years altogether.

Sometimes, when I think about my childhood, I wish I had come into this world as a pre-aged eighteen year old. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.

[Jane Sherwood]

I just remembered something from pre-school where, on picture day, they were getting ready to take the photo and giant butterfly landed right on my left shoulder. I remember that it freaked me out so badly I screamed at the top of my lungs. Not that it scared me, insects freaked me out but I knew enough then to realize butterflies were all right. I think it just startled me, you know, I just turned my head and suddenly there it was. And when you're only abuot three or four and something startles you, you either scream or start crying. I think now I understand why some of the "grown-ups" there thought it was funny...the sheer adorableness of it is almost nauseating.


Funny how I only just remembered it. The very picture that was being taken that day is still hanging in our hallway with a few other embarrassing cute little kid pictures.

[barend]

I'm really upset that so many of you don't remember your early childhood...

the first seven years of your life are the most important. they shape your basic personality the most, they shape the way later events will shape you, and for purposes of first point time comprehensive perpetual dialation - they are the longest years of your life. your comprension on the speed of time is relative to the amount of time you've been alive... like visual perpective based on physical size. so perspectivly speaking, the first seven years of your life make up to half of your life!!!

i remember vivid things from the early years... even dreams, quite clearly! sleeping in the cot. I actually have memories that predate my ability to talk - most of those thoughts have translated into current vocab, so i don't know what those thoughts originaly were, but i remember not being able to comunicate to others... yet i seem to have no clear memories of not being able to walk. I remember my first trip to holland when i was three, my best childhood friend (who was born few months after me), our mothers were friends, so we were friends from birth basically (well his birth).

i have horrifiaclly vivd and clear memories of my stay in hospital when i was about 4yrs old... Which is why i never forgot the name... Lumbar punch (a spinal injection), and i remember an introvenous needle cleaverly disguised as a bright orange wrist band that the nurse drew flowers on to try and coax me into, and i remember crying ALOT!!! It totally hurt, and i nearly made her cry (I obviously didn't know that at the time but the image was clear)... I remeber the corridors, the grey walls the sounds, the other kids, The little TV area everything...

holy shit!!! sorry to boar you there... I kind got of lost in that memory, that was really therapudic writing that all down... there's so much more... wow, i think i need to take the rest of the day off now and chill out... It was actually quite upsetting thinking about that...

weird.

[barend]

I remeber the corridors

but I can't remember how to spell...

oh, yeah i have shitty short term memory as a trade off.

[Heccubus]

Yeah, but Barend, it's not uncommon for people to not remember the events of those years, despite their effects on their lives later. Obviously something like an unpleasant hospital stay will stick with you, but not everyone has an event like that to remember. Like I said, the only thing I remember clearly is my father leaving, because that obviously had a profound impact on my life. My mother tells me things that happened to me at school in kindergarten or grade one that I have no recollection of, but there are other memories in their place (like stuff that I made or friends that moved away around that time, etc).