Yep, after having lived in China, HK, Taiwan and Japan since 1982 (with 3 years back in the US to complete 2 degrees), I’m moving the entire family back to the Seattle area. Should be quite the adventure since my wife and kids were born and raised in China and have never lived in the US. We have visited every year for 2-3 weeks but never lived there. Plus I get to bulldog a new job with the same Global 50 company. Thank gawd the HQ is in the Seattle area instead of some armpit.
Moving for a variety of reasons but the main driver is that my youngest twin Serena has some special needs and she needs the care that’s available in the US. We had her in a private school for a while but at over USD1,000 per week, it just wasn’t realistic (and frankly I don’t think they were that good). She goes to a pre-school that do their best but aren’t set up for special needs kids. She gets some good specialized training on Saturdays at a government run program that’s overwhelmed, understaffed and doing a heroic job anyway. For those that followed along, you might remember this thread on her birth and follow up that I posted more or less in real time to keep sane: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=293583&highlight=apgar . I updated on the twins a few weeks later here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=301824&highlight=apgar .
I haven’t really updated on her since then. It’s been kinda hard personally to talk about her situation in real life or on these boards.
Unfortunately, Serena didn’t dodge the bullet. We did some testing and the MRI brain scans come out normal. This implies here damage was on the cellular/nerve level. In other words, her synapses don’t work well. This has led to severe speech delays, fine and gross motor skill delays. The good news is that Serena continues to make progress. For example, she can say Maiasaura and speaks unprompted in simple sentences. What she can say is bi-lingual, and she does active code switching between Mandarin and English. So, it’s a no brainer to get her back to the US for kindergarten and hope hope hope that maybe she can do some mainstreaming in first grade.
Audrey is high spirited. She doesn’t walk but is the kind of kid that runs everywhere. Teachers say stuff that make a parent beam. she’s a good kid and a total drama queen. And inherited a generations’ worth of subborness from the Shanghaiese side of the house.
Eldest Jacqueline is a great big sister. She’s also an accomplished artist and just won a big Chinese painting award and will be featured in a book (and it appears to be something more than just "give the kid an award and the parents will buy a book award 
). Her shifu or painting master actually gave Jac one of his paintings, which are actually quite valuable. Jac is sick of Chinese school and REALLY looking forward to moving to the US. Her Chinese reading is really good (she’s read the entire Harry Potter series in Chinese) and we will work to keep her Chinese up.
Worst case scenario, I’ll bribe the bambinas with a dog.
My wife is excited to live in the US. She’s lived in Japan and Hong Kong, so it’s not such a huge leap. But she’s going to have to take care of the brood when I’m on business trips, which hopefully will be about 4-5 days at a time about once every two months.
Movers took out most of our stuff today. We still have the beds and kitchen stuff, but that’s about it. Those things will all be gone tomorrow. Then into a service apartment for a few days and fly out to Seattle on 16 June. So if you’re taking a flight, try not to be seated behind the family of 5 because it might be a little loud. I try my best but 12 hours on a plane is a challenge for most people and more so for kids. Then we’re in temp housing in Seattle as we try to get over jet lag, find schools, find a place to live, and I start a new job.
