Oh, and to actually contribute to the topic:
I remember my 2nd birthday. I remember my mom giving me a birthday card in my room that had a big number 2 on it.
This memory was so vivid that when I was 4 or 5 I stated with certainty that I was never 3. I went straight from 2 to 4. 
Of course, that was 10/28/67 - 10/27/68. Maybe with RF Kennedy’s and ML King’s assassinations, I just was too traumatized to remember.
My first two memories are bath-related:
When I was one or two, we lived in an older house with a claw-footed, cast iron bathtub. I remember standing on the floor and grabbing the edge of the tub (way above my head) and crying because I couldn’t get into the tub myself.
When I was two or three, I remember sitting in the tub by myself and needing to take a dump. I knew I shouldn’t in the tub, but, hey! no one was watching and I figured that, when the evidence was found, no one could prove that I did it. I keep this event in mind on the occasions when I need to determine the thought processes of three-year-olds.
Hah! Swiddles, for months you’ve been passing yourself off as a young vixen of 19, when you’re actually an old crone of 31! You stand revealed!
The winter I was two, I slipped outside and broke
my arm. I remember feeling really hot and wondering
how I could feel so hot when it was so cold out.
I must have been about two. My aunt was building a new house, and while she and my mother chatted on the front porch, I was playing in the torn-up yard. I climbed to the top of a dirt pile, and sat down. I can remember reaching down, and scooping up a fistful of dirt and shoving it into my mouth. My mother saw this, and with a powerful shriek, she darted across the lawn toward me, shouting “Spit it out! Spit it out!” I sat there, dumbfounded, my cheeks bulging with dirt, watching her run toward me yelling, her arms waving like a windmill. She swept me down from the pile, and wacked the back of my head in a stacatto beat until I spit out the offending soil. I never ate dirt again.
Lissa’s story reminded me of my first memory. I actually have two, and I’m not sure which happened first, so I’ll share them both.
My mother was gardening in the yard, digging in our flower beds and putting some kind of fertilizer on the plants. She had a plastic container of green powder fertilizer with an old spoon in it to sprinkle it with. I was toddling around the yard and I came up behind her while she wasn’t looking. I saw the spoon and apparently figured the green stuff would be good to eat. I don’t remember what happened after I ate it, but I can still remember how it tasted.
Fourth of July. My parents were having a barbecue in our back yard. Someone was lighting sparklers, and gave one to me (I was two or three). It burned down close to my hand and, just as I was getting scared, it went out. Of course, the metal stick was still very hot, but I didn’t realize, and I dropped my hand, still holding the sparkler. I hit the front of my leg with the sparkler and burned myself. I remember quite clearly being placed in the sink and submerged in cool water. I had a scar for years and years.
I was only about 18 months… but I remember one of my parents dropping me off a diving board in St. Croix. The pool was saltwater, and there were, like, crabs in it or something. I was terrified.
I rememeber it being a high-dive, but of course I was less than 2 and it Mom & Dad have told me it was only a 1-meter.
I was about three years old when my family first moved to the town I still live in. The first place we lived was just a large piece of property that didn’t have our house on it yet. I remember riding on my fathers lap at dusk on the riding lawn mower trying to mow everything before it became to dark. I was so excited to be “helping” my dad mow the yard.
I can remember when my younger brother was born, I remember my parents bringing him home from the hospital. I was nineteen months old and I remember hiding behind my father and the intense jealousy I felt for my baby brother.
Bo
I remember:
sitting in a small room in the front of my house in Saint John, New Brunswick, with my dad. He was reading a book to me and explaining that words have spaces between them. I was maybe 4.
dropping a brush off of the landing of the stairs in our house in the Estrie, Quebec, and watching it break in half, and being afraid that dad would be angry. I was maybe 5. I guess I was just a late bloomer.
Sitting on a couch in England with my brother, getting our picture taken. I was 2 1/2. I have the picture.
And Eve, I remember Kennedys’ assassination; I was a little over 3, and lived in France. All the adults were agitated, and I didn’t see my dad for a week, as the base was put on full alert, and we lived off base. Nobody got on or off the base until it was over.
I cannot remember which memory is older but here they are.
Oh wait, your not asking about this week?
I will try to think back further. Let me get back to you on that.
I clearly remember sitting outside my rowhome in Armstead Gardens on the stoop when I was nearly 2. I was still in a diaper and had on a t-shirt and little pantaloons, and there was a huge storm coming. It was 5pm and my mom, my brother and I were waiting for my dad to come home. The sky was dark blue and it was windy and lightning struck in the field right next to my house. All the neighbors were out too.
I also remember, around the same time, having chicken pox. My brother was two years older, in preschool, and he passed it to me. I recall being totally naked and running around the house, looking out the sliding glass door. It was in summer and I remember after we got better, walking with my dad so he could mow Miss Maisie’s lawn for a few bucks. He carried my piggyback while he mowed.
I read the other day that Georgia O’Keefe had her first memory when she was 8 months old. Hmmmm.
When I was 3…
At the beach with my family, I got knocked over by a wave. I remember opening my eyes and seeing the water and sand swirling around me like crazy. I tumbled a few times and ended up with my arms and legs up, perfect for Mom to pull me up with. What sticks in my mind to this date was the vividness of that water and how fascinated I was by it.
I remember going over to my mom’s friend Debbie’s house. They had brown and yellow shag carpeting, the house was a split level ranch. Mom carried me up to the top of the stairs into the living room. Debbie offered me an M&M from a cut glass bowl, but mom wouldn’t let me have any. My brother and Jason went back to Jason’s bedroom to play. Mom put me down, and I wanted to follow my brother and play with them. So, I crawled down the hallway. They didn’t want me coming in, so they put a big teddy bear in my way. I remember being so frustrated that I couldn’t push the bear out of the way. Notice I said crawled. This must have taken place pre-walking era.
My next memory is when we were moving to Omaha, so I was right at 1 1/2 - 2 years old. We were in the huge hotel. Jacob (my older brother) and I were running down the walkway above the dining area. Someone had a couch pushed out onto the walkway, blocking it. It was my uncle Dan. He told us to quit running. So, we went downstairs to see my dad. He was with his boss, so Jacob and I got orange juice from the dispenser.
After we moved to Omaha, we were at the zoo (Mutual of Omaha). My mom let go of my hand and told me to stay with her. I remember looking away, probably at the Polar Bears. Next thing I know, mom is walking away. I run up and grab her skirt so she doesn’t leave me, then I hear my mom laughing. I look up and see some strange lady’s face. My mom calls me back to her, back by the Polar Bears. Disaster averted!
I could probably cough up 10 memories per year of my early life.
–Tim
My earliest memory is the smell of gasoline. Apparently, when I was very young, perhaps two years old, we lived next to a gas station/garage, and the mechanics liked me and let me hang around.
I like the smell of gasoline to this day.
My first memory… I was three years old, and playing with legos in the driveway behind our car. My Dad comes out to drive to lunch with his friend. I realize that I probably don’t want to be behind the car anymore, so I start picking up the legos and putting them in my shirt (you know, holding up the hem and using it as a basket). But whenever I’d lean down to pick up a lego, another lego or two would fall out. As such, I was still picking up legos when the tire went over my chest. When I came to, I felt all fuzzy… I learned later I was spasming like crazy… and then I was in the hospital, and had to pee in a plastic bag, and I couldn’t walk for a couple months (dislocated hip bone). But I was three, so not bein’ able to walk is no big deal.
I recall sitting in what appears to be a shoulder high patch of parsley that is very green and being delighted by it. To my right is a single story building with a sidewalk and overhang that are apartments in a row and everything is ‘just right’ with the world. Everything is enormous.
Discussions with my mother over the years have led us to believe that the buildings are Airbase Apartments, where we first lived when we moved down here when I was about 1 year old. She doesn’t recall a parsley patch but I can recall the pungent smell and taste of the herb.
After the apartments, we moved temporarily into a great old house – of which I have no recollection at all – and from there into a motel to help run it with my grand parents. I recall that. It was one of those old fashioned roadside motels with the wings of small rooms and the crushed shell and dirt parking lot right out front. In the center, by the road of a colorful neon sign set in the middle of a round planter, which proclaimed the name of the place, ‘Jewel Court.’
I can recall a memory of standing beside the brick planter, with the sign all lit up and it’s night, my folks nearby, the sounds of occasional traffic on the small 2 lane road that was then US1 as it cut through Florida, the coolness of the evening, the bright stars and feeling all good about everything. I was fascinated by the neon light and even today love those things. I even have an old neon bar light that I restored.
I was potty training i think, but we had no bathroom, so in the middle of the night i recall holding my fathers hand walking to the outhouse with my coat on…looking at the snow on the ground.
My earliest memory is of going for walks with my mom when I was two. We would walk down to the end of the block where there was a store that had steps up to the stoop. The steps were covered with bright green astroturf, and I remember sitting on the step and pretending there were little animals playing in the grass.
I also remember that when we moved from that house my parents left some of my toys behind, including a bean bag chair, and I was really upset about them leaving it because it was mine. Apparently I never said anything to them, though, because they didn’t know anything about it when I mentioned it a few years ago. At least…they SAID they didn’t know anything about it… 
I also remember a haunted house that was in our garage one year for Halloween. I was three, and I remember helping them put it together and being so excited about it, and then I was so disappointed when they told me I was too little to go into it. That was the October when my brother was born, and my dad says Mom was still recovering (although he was born on the third of the month) and that the whole haunted house thing went terribly. I just remember being so disappointed. Halloween is still my favorite holiday, but they’re still never as cool as I think they should be.