I've had a few more memories these last few days...

Losing my Mickey Mouse toy on a rare visit to McDonald's, and searching around for it.  We ended up buying another; I was most distressed.  I was, Mum tells me, between 2.5 to 3yo.  So by that age the memories are less daily events, and more one-off occurrances.

Trying to climb out of a cot at my Nana's house (I slept in it till about 3yo, but the difficulty of extracting myself makes me think I was under 2.  I was watching my son do the same thing yesterday and thought of this.

I remember sitting in my high chair at home ~ about 15mo or less, and eating green beans, which I loved.  I don't think I remember this next bit, but the family lore has it that my 5yo sister came in and said, "Eurggh ~ Green beans!"  To which I replied, "Eurgh, Gween beans!" and hurled them at the wall.  Ah, the power of a sibling to change your mind...

Silver horse in the Moonlight

I read this 'letter to the editor' last night in an old edition of  NewScientist (3 Nov, 2012 Australian Edition).  What a lovely, evocative memory:

"I Remember you" 

                                     My autobiographical memories fit the general pattern described 

                                     in your feature (6 Oct, pg 3): I have few before the age of 5 or 6.  

                                     But my wife has many memories before 5 and even one before 1.

                                     In 1980 she recounted for the first time a memory of being held in 

                                     her mother's arms and seeing a silver horse in the moonlight at the

                                     side of their house.

                                          Her 81-year-old mother remembered the 1934 ~ a horseman 

                                     repaying a loan which had saved his house in the depression ~ and

                                     was shocked, declaring: "You were only 10 months old."

                           

I have been trying to recall more of my early memories, I know I have more.  But they are elusive when you try.  They only seem to appear for me spontaneously when I am watching my son, or thinking of something else.  If I actively try to remember them, my memory hits the usual 3-4yo cerebral brick wall.

I have always been aware of having memories and impressions of very early infancy; then I had a child.  Just watching him triggers more and more of these 'aha' moments...the visual image of him doing a task brings the awareness of these memories back.

One of the recollections that has been in my mind the longest is of being in a lemon-yellow mesh bouncinette.  I used to love bouncing in it ~ the feeling of freedom at a time when I was too young to have conscious bodily control.  It was something I was often left to play in from approx 3-15mo at my Nan's house.  Most of the memories are of daily routine activities, and not necessarily a specific moment.

One definite moment I recollect ~ bought about by watching my son's little hands while he lay in his isolette in the special-care nursery, was of laying in a crib, gazing up at a mobile gently turning above me, and willing my right hand to work by conscious control.  It was terribly frustrating to not be able to get it to obey my cognitive commands.  This is, I think, my earliest memory.

A new one appeared a few nights ago while I bathed my son, Blake,(who is almost 21mo).  He was hanging off the edge of the bath, in the water but wishing to get out, with his knees up near his hands and his shins in contact with the side of the bath.  I remember doing that...

One of the funniest memories reappeared when Blake was about 10mo and started doing that thing kids do where they slither out of your grasp and off your lap by 'going flat and limp' with their arms stretched up high, so you cannot hang on to them.  I suddenly recalled annoying my parents with that manouvre, and the feeling of enlightenment it brought ~ I was in control of the situation, even if just for a moment.

My toddler calls now, and I will have to come back to this later!