I don't have clear memories of individual things as a child, but I have a clear memory of the sensations of my childhood.

My mother's laugh.
She has a "true" laugh, that comes all the way from her belly up through her chest and it makes her whole face shine.
She used Southern phrases more often back then, and they crept into my speech. "More than Carter has pills" (this is funny when you have a cousin named Carter) and "Oh my stars and garters" (thank you Beast in X-Men for bringing that phrase back!)

We would sing Diana Ross and the Supremes in the house, shouting out Love Child as we danced around the living room or the kitchen, with her cocking her hip out so we could The Bump. (We still do this, by the way, but she doesn't have to cock her hip out so much since we're the same height.)

The scent of my little brother's sweat before he could actually "sweat" like an adult. Young children don't stink with sweat, they smell like outside and powder-y, like talc. He would crawl into bed with me on weekend mornings, smelling just like that, and stare at me until I woke up, his chubby little hands pillowing his equally chubby little cheek and a huge smile on his face.

The burn of cold on my face when I fell in the snow.

The glow behind my eyelids when I went on a field trip with my KinderCare teacher- she had teenage sons who I, at four or five, adored in the way only children can. They played games with me, listened to me, and I thought they were awesome. One of them, blond and looking a little like Billy Idol in my memory, was telling me a story on the bus and I'd fallen asleep on him.

The vibration up my arms of the mallet on a Whack-a-Mole game connecting with the head of a poor little fake mole.

I've forgotten most of the bad things, which is both a blessing and a curse. I don't remember pain in my childhood, not in the way that I remember these. These are memories that I can pull up and be right back in that piece of time; the painful ones are more like a taste, or a scent, that just won't go away.