Rationality in Children

I was surprised to learn that in reality, little children are far more intelligent that we would like to accept or believe. I recently understood that when we try to make a judgement about children and their abilities, we are usually far away from reality than we actually think. Then I felt that this could be an interesting enough topic to post on my Blog. The first thing that made me realize of my incorrect opinion on the rationality and cognitive abilities of children was their sense of purpose or use of an object. There are two mugs that we use for our daily ablution - one Green and one Blue. The Green one (relatively bigger one) is used for bathing purpose only. One day, for no attributable reason, the Blue one (relative smaller one) replaced the Green and was being used to give my kid a bath. She refused to take bath and was shouting, crying and running away. She was expressing her unwillingness to take bath with the Blue mug. I understood her revolt only when she expressed that it was wrong mug, and asked me to use the Green one. I was surprised. Later, when I thought about it, I understood that she is aware of the utility and the purpose of these two mugs was different. Second, the ability to meaningfully and comprehensively converse at 2.5 yrs. On no occasion during the last 6 months has she used wrong words or tense (may be more, but I wasn't aware of did not notice). Apart from that, she also uses the right tenor and tone when she speaks e.g. query/ question has a different tone from a response.
On one instance, her conversation started as follows:
She: All the boys and girls in my class are taking my water bottle.
Her Grandma: Why don't they bring their own water bottles to School?
S: They do.
G: Then why do they take your bottle?
S: I can't understand.
There are many more such things about the kids that we won't notice till they happen. So, when you next meet a kid, be ready to be surprised. Note: I'll post more such interesting conversations/ experiences with kids.