I remember the epiphany moment of understanding memory, and realizing that you can forget things. I was actually an infant but I know I could sit up. I remember thinking, I will remember THIS moment. I was sitting in front of a brick fireplace.

@Judi Yep,you can forget lots of things :P
Yeah,I still have the memory of me taking my first steps and sitting up.I won’t forget it! :)

care free childhood life at the beautiful refugee camp sandy beaches/dunes of mediterranean seas of italy.

@ESV That must’ve been something great to remember =]

I know nobody will believe this, but I described to my mother my earliest memory. I told her that my crib was out in the hallway for some reason, and that I woke up with a terrible stomach ache. Also I was hearing this terrible, loud noise that scared me. My mom came and picked me up. My stomach stopped hurting, and I realized that horrible noise had been coming from me! (my crying and screaming). She told me that was my first night home from the hospital after being born. I would have been 3 days old.

Also, I remember being sat on the couch, propped up with pillows, and then everyone went to the other side of the room and stared and shouted at me. I didn’t like that and started to cry. Then my sister came up to me from the side and tickled me, so I laughed. Then everyone came back. I thought it was so weird, until I saw a picture of me taken when I was about 4 months old. Oh, so THATS what they were doing!

I remember going fishing with my Grandpops at a pond with bamboo poles and cork floats. My younger sister was messing with the small fish we had caught, which he had on a string in the water.

The fish wriggled free and my Grandpops, uncharacteristically swearing a blue streak, was trying to catch it, which he did, when his feet slipped in the mud, and he sat down on his butt.

Of course, we all thought this was hysterical, and we were laughing and laughing. The picture of him sitting there in the mud in his overalls, holding that little fish in both hands is unforgettable.

One of my very first memories was riding a Big Wheel™ when I was three. And apparently some ants had take residence inside it somewhere. So I was eventually covered with ants and that kinda freaked me out. Ran back in the house and took a bath.

(The bath part might be invented… the timeline’s just not right. But that’s how I remember it.)

My earliest memory? Visiting my dad in jail when I was four. Ah yes, great memories indeed.

I remember being very young, probably 6 or 7 months old, at my great grandfather’s house in Florida. There was a nightstand that had a little clear ball attached to it kind of like a toilet paper holder and roll, with beads inside that made noises similar to those of a rain stick. there was a lamp with a gold base and a cream-colored lamp shade. I just remember sitting beside the nightstand playing with the ball at his house.

I also remember our family trip to the Poconos a long time ago, when I was almost three. I remember the bathtub being so weird that we took baths in the sink instead. I remember being on the mountains and going down this cool metal slide. I remember my hair always being in pigtails, and the feel and look of the pink and blue jacket that I always wore. I remember wearing uncomfortably tight leggings and white Keds sneakers. I remember going to the petting zoo and having a giant black pig almost jump out of the pen, and the goats attacking me and my dad so much that my dad had to pick me up on his shoulders to get me out.

Most of my fond memories involve my sisters.
I remember getting into a pillow fight with my sister Sharon, and when I went to retaliate I overcompensated and chipped my tooth on her head. Which in retrospect is hilarious to all of us, but at the time was awful.
maybe that wasn’t a good example :\

I wasn’t very little when this happened, I think I was ten years old. It’s my last memory of having fun with my dad. My little brother and sister and my dad and I were throwing snowballs and sticks into the creek that ran next to his house, and running from one bridge to the next to see whose snowball/stick had “won” – gotten there first. I remember it was really cold and dark, but I didn’t want to go inside because we were having so much fun. We were all laughing and running around on the banks of the creek in the snowdrifts. My dad was a really calm, placid guy usually, so this was out of the ordinary for him. I’ll never forget it because it’s such a clear and happy memory of my dad before he died that spring.

I will always remember Christmas as a kid who believed in Santa, those were the days.

I remember my grandma taking my brothers and sisters to the swimming pool; and watching them get ready to leave through the bars in my play pen—I was only 2 years old at the time!

I don’t know about specific memories; I remember seeing a blinking red light on a telephone while I was trying to sleep in an apartment room in South Africa. I was 2. I called my mom to turn it off because it was scaring me. I’ll never forget that… :P

Basically, it’s not too specific, but any memory of being at my grandmother’s house is strong. I just thought it was best place ever. I loved going there. I remember sitting with my grandmother on the couch and her black cat jumped up on top of me and kind of freaked me out; my grandmother assured me it was fine, and the cat was really calm and just started lying on top of my lap. I was probably 7 or 8. I hate the fact that my maternal grandmother got Alzheimer’s so early in my life. She really was my favorite relative. We had all the same interests, it’s freaky.

And of course, I mentioned it before, but I remember listening to Carmina Burana for the first time at my grandmother’s house. I was lying on that white carpet in the hallway and the sun was shining everywhere; it was always such a bright house. The carpet was white, the furniture was light, there were windows everywhere, and of course, it was in sunny Las Vegas.

That’s SO Awesome! :)

Getting a foot of metal skewered through my leg.

Most of the other answers are ‘earliest’ memories. I have earlier memories, but the strongest memory is the year I almost died. I had a burst appendix and the first doctor botched the operation, so they had to do it over. It was Christmas week, and Santa Claus himself brought me a toy dog I had been wanting all year, but I was to sick to notice.

When I went home, all my relatives were there at the house, because no one expected me to see the New Year. My mom had to change my bandages and other things too gross to tell here, and I made it to my January birthday, and beyond.

My Mom is long gone now, but I expect to make it past my 100th in 2043.

I remember meeting my first childhood best friend. We’d just moved to a new town, and he lived next door. I remember him asking how old I was, and I kept saying, “Free!” He’d say, “Free isn’t a number. How old are you really?” Since he was four, he got to act superior. I was so frustrated at not being able to say “three” that I got mad at him, but it didn’t last long. We were best friends until he started middle school and became too cool to hang out with the girl next door!

The only earlier memory I have is of eating in a restaurant with my parents. The restaurant had a jailhouse theme, so the booths had bars on them. I think I remember it because I was afraid they wouldn’t let us out when we were done with our food. I was either about to turn three, or just past my third birthday.

Other memories really stand out too, like fishing with my dad but catching a turtle instead of a fish, the cool older boy in our neighborhood who collected spiders and let us younger kids beat on him, walking a couple of blocks to a bookstore to buy Sweet Valley High books, riding a sled being pulled by an ATV and thinking I was going to die but loving every second, the babysitter who would let me stay up after my brother was asleep so we could make cookies, and the sight of my cat staggering through the back door after her tail had been yanked out by the fanbelt of a car’s engine. Each of those moments are so easy to picture!

staring into a candle on Christmas Day when I was seven utterly utterly depressed

Not incredibly significant like a puppy, but one of the earliest things I remember is going through the “massive forests” behind my first house with my brother and sister (them paving the way, being 5 and 3 years older than I, respectively) coming across a pond with hundreds of amphibian eggs, and then coming back some time later to find eggs gone and tadpoles hatches.

I shocked my mother with a memory of my (biological) father. He was murdered when I was young, but evidently, I recalled; almost in perfect detail, an afternoon outings, after mass. I told her I had this dream, over and over. A girl walking, in a polka dot dress, holding the hand of a man. The girl had an ice cream cone and the ice cream fell off the cone. The man laughed, picked her up and took her back for a new one.

She looked at me, almost in disbelief. She said I was about 2½ when that happened. One of the rare days when my (biological) father was home to take us all out. He had a bit of a drinking issue…and a girlfriend.

I remember riding down Main Street in my grandpas pony wagon in the 4th of July parade one year, I was probably about 10. My cousin kept messing with the tailgate of the wagon, he wanted to put it down and hang his legs over. We were stopped for a little bit, so I leaned over and was trying to help him get the tail gate open when the ponies kind of lurched and the wagon started rolling. I fell out of the wagon onto my face in front of hundreds of people. There was a truck right behind us that nearly ran me over before I could get up. My grandpa was hard of hearing and just kept driving his ponies, not fast of course, but they were just leaving me. I had to run and catch up and jump in the wagon. I wasn’t hurt bad, just scraped up my face and was totally embarrassed. It’s funny now, but I thought I was going to die of embarrassment then.

When I was 6, I hid under the sofa beside our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve in hopes of seeing Santa. After my parents, sister and bros all went to bed, I snuck out of my room, went into the livingroom and slithered my scrawny body under the sofa. The plan was to see the Big Dude in Red place presents under the tree. I ended up waking up in my own bed the next morning. Back then, when I was a kid, I believed that Santa knew that I was under tree and picked me up and put me back in my bed. When I told my 6 year old niece this story the other day, her eyes were as wide as saucers. I had to repeat the story about 10 times for the next two days.

- I remember trying to be cute when I was three.. intentionally yelling out that I was “free” instead of “three”. I remember thinking how sneaky I was that everyone thought I was dumb enough to say “free”.

- I remember being a river guide in a kayak and a very large woman was my customer that day. She made the inflatable kayak sag on the sides allowing water to come in right in the middle of the roughest part of the river. We flipped over and she chose that moment to scream that she didn’t know how to swim.

- I remember the night my dad told my mom he had cheated on her. We were camping at a giant family reunion and Dad had just killed a giant spider in the tent so that we could go to sleep. Later we heard them arguing and the next morning before it was light we left the campground… we didn’t want to go.

- I remember hitting the only home run in baseball of my life in little league. I had been struggling for so long to hit at all. No one was there to teach me how to hit. Then one day my dad (who was separated from mom at the time) showed up and was my dad for the whole day. He taught me how to hit. He pitched super fast at me which got me prepared for the much slower little league pitching.That very night I plugged one over the center field wall and hit my way onto the allstar team after that. Eventually my hitting streak ended and I returned to normal.. Dad was gone again.

- I remember hiking way up into the mountains with my little brother and my dad. It was such a long hike and we had packed far too much making our packs very heavy. When we finally got to the top it looked so beautiful that it was all worth the trip. Subsequent trips to the same spot never had the same effect as that first day.

- I remember digging a giant hole to use as a fort in the middle of a cow ditch and having a rancher scream his head off at me to fill it in so his cows wouldn’t fall in.

- I remember finding my older brother’s porn stash in a fort he had built in a horse stable at the fairgrounds. A rancher yelled at me that day too, thinking it was my fort. I don’t have much luck with ranchers. (probably because my brothers, my sister and myself were the only kids in town that weren’t the children of a farmer or a rancher)

- I remember snipe hunting, glass mountain, blue lake, trips to Mount Lassen, skiing in Mount Shasta, getting lost in the woods, getting found in the woods, learning what a boner was, the day my brother gut stung multiple times by a yellow jacket, wood cutting trips, shooting the rifles, playing cowboys and indians, water balloon fights, the day my neighbor died, the day my sister’s friend died, the day my friend died, the day my grandmother died, the day I found out that my grandfather was a pedophile, Christmas at grandpas before we found out, spilling the lemonade all over the dinner table, the infamous rag incident, setting my room on fire, breaking my favorite radio, my mom teaching us the bible, my first crush whose name was Anna, the girl next door kissing me, the girl in 6th grade wanting to kiss me, watching my first MLB game at the stadium, the day the egg hit me in the face, the day I got in a “fight” with a bully, the day the teacher yelled at me and to this day I don’t know why…

I have far too many personally significant memories to count. I’ve already filled up too much space.

@cak Aww, that’s soo sad,i feel soo bad for you :(
@NaturalMineralWater Woah! Sounds like some good times and some ups and downs,I feel bad for you when you said mentioned how your dad cheated,you hitting the home run when your dad wasn’t there to support you and the other stories :(

@irocktheworld – oh, don’t…I had a wonderful man raise me. :) My (step) Dad raised me and did a fantastic job. He was a wonderful man, father and friend. Unfortunately, he passed away this year. We miss him like crazy, but I am so lucky he raised me.

@cak That’s really good :) It’s nice to have a dad who cares and is wonderful :]
Ohh my gosh..Aww..that’s soo sad =,[ I feel like crying,you must miss him,I know I would if that happened to me. You should be lucky,I know you are :)

@irocktheworld Many tears have been shed since January, I’m certain there are many more to come. With the sadness, I still can see how lucky I am. Don’t cry! You’ll get me started!

@cak Aww…you ARE lucky..I was close to cry because your story reminded me of how my grandma passed away on my dad’s b-day and she was on his side of the family :,(
Please don’t cry :)

@irocktheworld I won’t. I’ve had some good laughs about my dad today. Seems he was on everyone’s mind. We were all laughing. I’m so sorry about your grandma’s passing and on you’re dad’s birthday. Okay…no tears! Not today. :)

Ohh…that’s really good, it’s always nice to laugh :P
It’s okay,I’ll never get over it though,I’m just sad to say that I don’t have a gradma :(
Yup! If you won;t cry then I won’t! :)

@irocktheworld My life has been pretty damn good despite some crazy stuff. There are literally millions out there who had it rougher than me. It’s a sad state of affairs.

I remember talking to this little old lady that taught me gardening back when I was a boy. One day, she was trying to explain to me how her husband had died and I wasn’t quite grasping it (I was only about eleven or so) and I got this idea that wouldn’t it be great if we could siphon the thoughts and memories out of older folks, especially those that were dying, or non-verbal, in order to learn from their wisdom or just to capture their history? To this day, whenever I learn about someone I know or admire that is dying, or has died, the thought of that memory capturing device comes to mind.

It would have to be painless, or they might resist our efforts. =)

@NaturalMineralWater
That’s really good :)
Yeah,I really feel bad for others who have it rough and I just wish I could help,you know?

@irocktheworld I know what you mean. You and me are the type of people that would actually give the poor guy with the “please spare a dollar” sign some money.

@NaturalMineralWater Exactly because I actually live in Illinois and when we walk around in Chicago and stuff,I always see poor adults just laying down,doing nothing but hold signs for money. I feel really bad for them and I always ask my parents if they have money so I can give it to the poor guy and when we do have money,we give it to the guy and usually they say ’‘God bless you’’ and I give them a smile.I know I’ve done something good :)