My earliest clear memory is that of my 4th birthday, from the moment I woke up to a couple of hours later. I remember my mom telling me to get dressed up so we can go to the daycare and after to school, which I started to do and then thought “what’s school? what’s daycare?” (these I asked) “why are you my mom?” (this one I didn’t for some reason). After being fully dressed, we got into the car and drove to the daycare, I was guided to a room that’s next to the kitchen and told to wait. A couple of minutes later, I notice a light coming from the hallway connecting to the kitchen (“what’s that? why is it coming closer?”), then the nanny, her husband and my mom come out with a cake. I then immediately asked why there was a cake, I was told it’s my birthday, and then I asked what’s a birthday.
So yeah I think kids ask a lot of questions the moment or around when they start to be self-aware.
My earliest memory is a hazy recollection of wandering around a sea of legs in my own backyard because my parents threw some kind of party, and when I told my mom this years ago she said I couldn’t possibly remember that, because the only party they ever threw in that house was when my brother was born and I was only 2 at the time.
Well, I fucking remember it. 🤷♂️
Some people remember things as images and see stories in books as images. Do you have a memory from that time that is preserved as images so that you can actually see what the world looks like from the perspective of a 2-year-old? Also, can you recognise things in that memory that have caught your 2-year-old attention that would not catch the attention of an adult who already has answers to many questions? Or the other way around, is something missing in the memory that by all logic should be there, because a two-year-old doesn’t recognise it as significant?
(My oldest memory is from about that age as well. It’s me looking at a pavement made of 30 cm (~1 foot) wide concrete slabs while sitting in a stroller, observing how the lines between the slabs are recognisable when I look further away but turn into a blur if I look as straight down as I can)