Emma attends kindergarten at the Rochester School for the Deaf (RSD). She’s been there since March 2007 – three months after her arrival in the USA on December 21, 2006. She has thrived at RSD - her language development has been phenomenal; she has excellent language skills – reading, writing, expressive and receptive. Considering that she had no exposure to language for the first three years of her life in China with her birth and foster families, we are blessed that Emma was able to “catch up”. She has had wonderful teachers during her three years at the RSD Early Childhood Center (ECC). She’s now off to the “big” (something that we’re reminded of all the time) school building with seven of the same classmates from the ECC. She also reached a milestone recently – that is, riding the bus!

On the day after her fifth birthday (February 7th) of last year, she came downstairs and said that she’s expecting the bus to arrive starting on Monday morning. She was still in her last year at the preschool and still being transported via a private cab that brought children to the ECC. We gently told her that the bus won’t be coming until the fall when she enters kindergarten. Emma’s tears flowed and, boy, was she mad! She stomped around the living room and kitchen. It took an hour to explain the rationale of the bus not being available until kindergarten when she becomes a student in our local school district. She took our word literally that when she became five she would be riding the bus. Our mistake!

Emma also attends after-school wrap programs – first at Margaret’s House at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) campus from November 2007 to June 2009. She made many strides there, too, with making new friends, playing hard on their playground, cleaning up (something that she does NOT do at home!), and sometimes having a lunch at the RIT cafeteria with Mom and Dad when she’s there all day during school closings for secular holidays, etc. She’s now attending the Children’s Center of Brighton (CCB) – which is much closer to home. Emma started there in mid-August with their full-time day camp for two weeks. She likes going there, too – especially with their arts and crafts hours. We come home with plenty of her creations daily. Everyone at Margaret’s House and CCB enjoys her so!

Mike is entering his fourth year of teaching at the National Technical Institute of the Deaf (NTID) at the RIT campus. Mike teaches accounting, personal finance, payroll and Excel classes at NTID for associate degree-level deaf and hard-of-hearing students and also tutors a bit on the side to bachelor-bound students who take classes at RIT’s Saunders College of Business. Mike is also completing his second graduate degree in deaf education this fall. Right now, he’s very busy writing his thesis!

Erin is an admissions counselor at NTID/RIT. Her assigned region is the Northeast, her favorite region in the whole USA! She travels extensively in the fall – traveling as north as Maine and as south as Delaware. She enjoys interacting with all potential deaf and hard-of-hearing students in various high schools – both mainstreamed and schools for the deaf. Never a dull moment during her travel (and for Mr. Mom at home with Emma)! Thank God for GPS and videophones!

Casey, our beloved Australian shepherd mix, is now all of eight years old. She and Emma have become very close; they often snuggle together on the couch and in bed, during Emma’s reading time. They have even fallen asleep together on occasion! We’re grateful for Grandma and Grandpa Kane for taking care of our Casey during our upcoming trip to China.