In the last three weeks here’s her sentence progression:

I did it!*
I want it.
I get it.
Hello? Hello? I talk to you! (yelling into the phone)
Mama lay down.
I want it. I want glasses.

* She was so proud of doing something (I don’t remember what) by herself that she said her first sentence!

One Woman’s Mission: To Immunize Children Worldwide With the Polio Vaccine

“For more than a year, her mother massaged her daughter’s limbs every three hours, even in the middle of the night, to keep her muscles from atrophying.”

“The experience was eye-opening: “Moms walked for miles with their children, then lined up by the hundreds—all to get their kids vaccinated, Since there’s no cure for this disease, prevention is everything”

“No child should have polio today. Not when it is preventable by a few oral drops that cost just 60 cents.”

“I have had women come to me in secret, asking to have their children immunized—as long as their husbands never find out”

“If I’ve touched thousands of lives, so have the American volunteers who come with me—including a woman of 86 who was a real trouper. For me, and I think for them as well, it’s a privilege to do this work.”

Michigan Death Notices: Collins, Edna Susie

Collins Edna Susie 89, passed away on April 17, 2012 of natural causes. She was born on March 1, 1923 in Des Moines Iowa. She married Oreese Collins (d.). Edna leaves behind two sisters: Thelma Reeves and Mary Rollison; three children: Dr. Hester S. Pernell, of Detroit, Oreese Collins Jr., of Detroit and Judge Marjory A. German, of Boston; twelve grandchildren, six great grandchildren, and a host of other family and friends. Public viewing is April 20, 5-9pm and the funeral is April 21, 9am, both at Swanson Funeral Home, 14751 W. McNichols, Detroit.

The whole article is good, and short. But here are the best excerpts in my opinion:

That group loyalty, Wilson said, is at the root of both some of our finest and darkest impulses — our willingness to sacrifice for others and the xenophobia that underlies aggression against outsiders.

“As William James said, ‘History was a bloodbath.’ We know this was true in history and prehistory,” Wilson said. “Groups consisting of altruistic individuals beat groups consisting of selfish individuals.”

She stopped, looked up, then looked around. “Bubbles,” she said.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “Where are they?”

“Kich” she said.

“What?” I asked, still looking around.

“Kich in, Kich in,” she informed me.

“Kitchen?” I tried to clarify, and I started around towards it. Amber ran in front of me. I looked all over, no bubble blower or plate. Amber looked too. I looked back in the living room and dining room. I checked the bathroom. Maybe I had taken them upstairs when I went? I didn’t think I had. I kept looking, I even checked her room just in case, but couldn’t find them. No, I was sure Amber had them last.

So I asked her again, “Amber, where are the bubbles?” slightly exasperated.

“Kich in,” she said simply. I wasn’t sure she was saying Kitchen anymore, but I checked again anyway. No bubble blower or plate. I even glanced in the family room in case she had thrown them in there. Nope. Oh well… we’d have to go without them.

As we’re walking out the door, I suddenly remembered Amber had been in the refrigerator too. I went to the fridge, opened it, and there they were. In the Kitchen, just as Amber had said.