Cognitive Piaget (I hate you)

I hate Piaget because it's hard to remember.  I often totally forget what Piaget's developmental stages are even about (cognition).  I think part of it is I don't have a lot of interaction with children (meaning, I'm an only child and haven't had kids and also haven't worked with kids), so these stages are difficult for me to remember. Plus, Piaget uses unnecessarily oblique terms like "operational," that come with lots of definition baggage and can confuse things even more, but, let me try to figure them out with you.

First, if you look at the Wikipedia page on Piaget, you quickly get the sense that the word "operational" really means "logic" or "thinking."  Remember, Piaget is about cognition (which is just a way of saying "how a kid starts to use its brain to think about things," because all of that was too long of a title.)

Second, there are 4 Piaget COGNITIVE developmental stages, and they break down into age groups that correlate with the degree to which a child is able to think about things:  (I should also say, I don't think the tests will get this into detail, but it helps me remember other stages of development, so for the sake of reinforcement of memory...)

Stage 1: Sensorimotor (0-2 y-o): This is when babies discover the world through their senses and gain motor control, hence "sensorimotor."
reflexes (<1 month old) like Palmar, Tonic Neck, Sucking/Rooting, Moro, Plantar, Babinski
first habits and primary circular reactions (1-4 mos) where the baby stumbles across self-soothing/pleasurable actions like thumb sucking
secondary circular reactions (4-8 mos): at this point the baby becomes aware of "other than self objects" when they start rolling (back to side) and are able to intentionally palmar grasp, and accidentally discover that they can affect things (rattles, etc.) and they just do it over and over and over again, almost like they can't stop themselves.
 coordination of secondary circular reactions (8-12 mos): this is when babies get into everything.  Remember that they have developed fine pincer movement and the ability to sit up straight by themselves at 8 months, so they are now intentionally moving things (knocking crap to the ground and laughing about it cause it's hilarious), and they get OBJECT PERMANENCE AT 9 MONTHS (test question), so once they decide they want something, it doesn't matter where you hide it, they will get to it.
tertiary circular reactions/novelty and curiosity (12-18 mos): this is when babies start outwitting their parents.  They will try different ways to get what they want.
internalization of schemata: basically, the baby is able to build from experience and predict an outcome/thinking through an action to get to a goal=learning.

Stage 2: Preoperational (2-7 y-o, loosely "preschool"): This is when children are super self-centered.  They don't understand concrete logic, so they can't mentally manipulate information--everything is literal.  For example, "That was cold, man," doesn't mean "that was brutally honest," it means "it feels very cold."  Children in preoperational are EGOCENTRIC, but they can do magic pretend and manipulate symbols.
3) Concrete Operational (7-11 y-o, loosely "school age"): Can think logically (aka concrete operational), and can think in reverse.  No longer egocentric (can feel empathy).
4) Formal Operational (11+): Abstract logic (aka formal operational), multiple step problem solving, and is self-aware (planning, monitoring, evaluating).