I think you did have that cognitive capacity at three. My first memory is getting lost at 2 (outside) and trying to find my way home and I would have succeeded but someone moved the bridge I knew which direction I'd come from and where the bridge was (to the left) but it wasn't there (because there was a bend and I wasn't old enough in Piaget years to know about corners). But I was a good reasoner!

We have passions when we're that old and preferences, etc. My aunt (who is 87 today) says I hated having my hair washed as a 2 year old so she solved that by letting me do it myself and I was fine until the shampoo got in my eyes (not much children's shampoo yet I guess in 1952). But I was a very willful thing!

I was picturing a naked, jointed, wooden doll; kind of like I picture when I'm reading historical novels and the frontier father makes the girl a doll for Christmas that the mother clothes, etc. Kind of a blank slate your mother could do with as she wished. Only you weren't blank.