Submit A Memory
I remember looking over a wall and seeing water gushing under a door. People were trying to push blankets and pillows into the crack to stop the water. Later I asked my mother what it could mean, and she said that when I was three months old there was a flood. My twin brother and I were put on the kitchen table to be minded by my older sister. The wall I remember seeing must have been the edge of the table. [This memory was originally submitted on Monday, December 14, 1998 at 08:22:43 (PST) to the Exploratorium Earliest Memory Website, which ceased accepting input in 2000. See www.exploratorium.edu/memory/earlymemory/memoryform.html for some of the submissions.]
Posted By: Stan No Last Name
I was standing in my crib leaning way over the end so I could see the color tv screen. Thinking back on it, I hadn't a hope of ever seeing it, since it was positioned to face away from the room where I was, but I was trying hard anyway, and I fell out. I remember I was afraid I would get in trouble if anyone found out I wasn't "going to sleep like a good girl." This was before I could talk or walk. I don't know how I got back into the crib. I still fall down from time to time.
Posted By: Connie L
Washington
One of my first memories was having my diaper changed by my mom on the changing table. She had taken my diaper off and (I'm assuming) needed to leave the room for a second to get another diaper. She said (and I remember she always said this), "Don't put that plastic bag over your head when I'm gone—you won't be able to breathe," which made me very curious to find out why she would tell me that, so of course I wanted to try it. In order to get to the plastic bag, which was around the end of the changing table, I had to do a sit-up type move, but baby style. I got the plastic bag in my hands and put it over my head to see if I could breathe. Of course you can breathe a few breaths, which is what I did. Then I heard my mom returning to the room and quickly tried to put the bag back where it had been and get back to the position I had been in, because I knew she would be so mad if she caught me. This all happened before I could talk or walk.
Posted By: Daniel Burkett
California
My first memory is of the brightness of light—light all around. I was sitting among pillows on a quilt on the ground—very large white pillows. The quilt was a cotton patchwork of two different kinds of material. I was probably eight or nine months old. This was all new to me—the brightness of light and pillows and a quilt and ground out beyond. My mother sat on a bench beside a long table, her back turned to me . A friend called Aunt Winnie stood at the end of the table in profile. Years later I told my mother that I could remember something that I saw before I could walk. She laughed and said it was impossible. So I described that scene—even to the details of the material of Aunt Winnie's dress. She was much surprised and finally—a bit unwillingly—acknowledged that I must be right, particularly because she, too, remembered Winnie's dress. [This is the opening recollection in O'Keeffe's 1976 autobiography.]
Posted By: Georgia O'Keeffe
Artist, New Mexico
I think I was under 6 months old. I remember having strep throat and being in the hospital where they wouldn't let my mother in the room. Nobody could come near me. I just remember crying and crying. I think I was there a week or 10 days.
Posted By: Keren J. W.
Ithaca, New York
One of my earliest memories is from when I was too little to stand up by myself and couldn't talk. What I remember is sleeping in my crib and how, first thing in the morning, I would feel a warm beam of sunshine on me, and I would "talk" with a baby deer. This is so funny, because for years I thought it was just a fantasy, you know, a "baby memory," but then later—looking at photographs—I saw that there was actually a picture of a faun hanging on the wall next to my crib. I can't remember any conversations, but I do remember "communicating." I have always carried this memory with me, and to this day, the warmth of the sun gives me a sense of well-being and calm.
Posted By: Julie D.
It was my 1st or 2nd full summer. I was born in July of '42, so this was '43 or '44. I was in a playpen on our front stoop. It was sunny. I was looking out between the vertical slats at a spikey plant with green leaves with yellow edges (I believe it now to be an Aloe). I can see my left hand gripping the wooden slat. I can feel the sun on the right side of my face. [This memory was originally submitted on Tuesday, March 16, 1999 at 05:02:57 (PDT) to the Exploratorium Earliest Memory Website, which ceased accepting input in 2000. See www.exploratorium.edu/memory/earlymemory/memoryform.html for some of the submissions.]
Posted By: D. Cassidy
My mom and I had been gardening at the side of the house we lived in in South Pasadena, CA. As we walked around the back of the house to go in, she stopped, bent down so we were eye to eye, and told me I was going to have a new little baby brother. At this point, I was an only child. I remember thinking, "Why? How could that possibly be a good thing?" He is 15-1/2 months younger than me. I could walk but not talk, so I couldn't ask her my question.
Posted By: c. s.
Ithaca, New York
I remember being in a crib and looking up at a window which was unusually high up on the wall. While looking out of the window I could see a tire of a car and the trunk of a very large tree. Years later, I explained this memory to my mother and she said, "That's impossible! You were only 6 months old when we lived in that basement apartment!" I believe that to be my earliest memory! [This memory was originally submitted on Monday, May 17, 1999 at 17:39:55 (PDT) to the Exploratorium Earliest Memory Website, which ceased accepting input in 2000. See www.exploratorium.edu/memory/earlymemory/memoryform.html for some of the submissions.]
Posted By: Greer Bodenschatz
I remember my old house in Oregon. There were two boys that came over sometimes to be babysat by my mom. They were wild. They would climb trees, and one of them even climbed on top of the commercial crab pots my dad had stacked against the side of the house. I could walk, but I couldn't talk yet.
Posted By: Katie B
Hawaii
