e EMILY OBERNEDER pads barefoot on the carpet in the TV room of her home. Her face, framed by brown
pigtails, lights up when an imaginative little boy named
Caillou appears on the television screen. Caillou holds her attention for a few moments, before a 3-year-old’s natural
restlessness sets in and Emily is off to the next thing. After stopping to share her crackers with a visitor, she climbs happily onto her mom’s lap, an iPad in tow.
Emily is a curious, playful, engaging little girl. She also has Down syndrome. Her diagnosis shortly after birth
was a surprise to her parents, Dan and Kathleen, who
met as undergrads at Marquette. But it laid the groundwork for the most pivotal undertaking of their lives — that is building a Milwaukee location, the very first in Wisconsin, of GiGi’s Playhouse, an established, nonprofit achievement center for individuals with Down syndrome.
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