Matthew's Page
Is this kid cute or what?!?
Click to see a full size image of any of
these pictures
Hi my name is Matthew. I am 10 years old. I am very small for
my age and I weigh only 56 pounds, even though I am a good eater. I love sports.
My favorite sport is BASEBALL. I love to watch it and I love to play it to. I
also love to play soccer although I don't watch it on TV. I also like swimming
and riding my bike. I have 5 older sisters, and they all act like mothers to me.
Most of the time I like it because they are really good to me, but other times
it gets really annoying. My sister Jessica is helping me make this page.
I have Autism and mild Cerebral Palsy. I am really
good in math, better then I should be. I am in 5th grade and in all regular
classes, although I do get extra help. My best friends are Jacob and Cameron.
They are adopted foster children, just like me. My favorite food is seafood, but
out of all of the seafood sushi is my favorite, just like my Dad and sister
Jessica. My favorite color is Red. My lucky number is 18. I have brown hair and
greenish blue. I am about 4 foot 4 inches. I collect baseball cards. I don't
really listen to music. I love to play video games. So there really isn't much
to know about me.
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That is my older sister Jessica and Me
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That is my cousin Kevin, my sister Arielle and me in a hot tub in
Tennessee.
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That is my older sister Jessica and me getting ready to go to temple
for Yom kipper last year
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This adorable child's name is Matthew and
he is 10 years old. Matthew came to live with me as a foster child after
3 1/2 months of severe neglect. The back of his head was flat as a board and it
continued this way right down to his middle back. He did not establish eye contact
and had no idea how to be cuddled or to lay on his tummy and could not drink a bottle
while being held. He also couldn't hold his own bottle till he was 17 months
old, and didn't roll over till he was 13 month at which time he also started to
crawl. He began walking
at 17 months and this was a huge step for him.
When a child is upset or crying, a mothers
instinct is to hold, cradle and rock the child. Matthew could not tolerate
this and would arch his back and push away. The only way to calm him was
to lay him on his back with his pacifier in his mouth and a cloth diaper over
his face. He would hold the diaper on his face and rock himself back and
forth. It took us around 8 months to teach Matthew to drink a bottle in a
sitting up position, he only knew how to drink when flat on his back.
Matthew has Cerebral Palsy and is Autistic. Matthew started attending a preschool for children with special needs when he
was 2. Matthew received a great deal of therapy from a very young age and
his doctors say he should be the poster child for why early intervention is so
important. Matthew is very functional and most people wouldn't even guess
that he has these problems in less they spent a lot of time around him. He
has progressed much farther than was ever expected.
Matthew is
absolutely adorable child and so incredibly sweet and loving that we decided to
adopt him instead of him leaving our home to be placed into an adoptive home. For
the 18 years we have fostered children, we have always said we are not in this to adopt
and we just foster the kids until a permanent home can be found for them. This
little boy reached out and grabbed our hearts in such a way that we could not
imagine allowing him to leave and not become a permanent part of our family. He
had never shown attachment to any one, but one day when I was leaving for work
he reached up and hugged me around her neck. As I was walking out the door I was
thinking to myself that I couldn't let him leave now, because he is finally
attached. I immediately called my husband Marvin and told him what happened and
that I couldn't let him go, he couldn't agree more. So we called the adoption
agency and told them I wanted to adopt him. My husband said if I had asked him a
couple months earlier he would have said i was crazy. On
12/12/00, Matthew became a permanent part of our family and we couldn't be
happier. He knows he was adopted and when he was little he use to call it his
readoption, which always made us laugh.
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Me in the pool in my backyard
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My cousin Taylor and I riding bikes
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Me and my older sister Nicole
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Since Matthew came to live with us at 3.5 months of age, he has NEVER slept
through the night. For the last several years, he wakes up 2 to 5 times a
night "battling" with someone. He is kicking and pushing and shouting
things like "leave me alone", "go away", "don't touch me" and other things of
this sort. His battles are always the same, the words never change and the
episodes look exactly the same. In the morning, he is never aware that he
has awakened during the night. In March 2005, his Neurologist and his
sleep doctor sent him to Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital to have a
thorough sleep study done. There is a possibility that he is having
seizures in the frontal lobe and a certain stage in his sleep. In the
pictures below, you can see Matthew preparing in advance for his sleep study,
and practicing on a doll for everything that will be getting hooked up to him.
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This is me and my older sister Arielle
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Cant touch this its to HOT for you lol
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Me posing on the front lawn of our house when I was little.
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Matthew is my sister Nicole's little "beloved". She dotes
on this boy and likes to take him with her when she goes places. She also
likes to pose him for pictures because she feels as I do, that he is gorgeous.
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This is Me in bed with my older sister Nicole.
The casts on my legs are because of surgery I had to lengthen my heel
cords because of my cerebral palsy and the way I walk.
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Me after I got my hair cut a while ago
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Me lighting my Menorah on the last day of Chanukkah on 12/6/02.
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The picture below shows Matthew with his new and
fabulous painting, made specially for him by
Fine Art by Alexander Sviridov I saw Alex's art on
ebay and fell in love with it. I purchased one of his paintings for my
husband, and Alex saw my web address in my signature. He checked out my
website, saw the kids, and he and his wife were so touched by Matthew's story,
that he decided to paint something just for Matthew. When Marvin's
painting arrived with this special painting for Matthew along with it, Matthew
couldn't stop smiling and stand still. I caught him long enough to take
this picture of him holding his painting. Next to Matthew's picture is the
painting I bought for Marvin. If you are in the market for gorgeous one of
a kind oil paintings on canvas, please stop by ebay and check Alex out (Seller
Name
alexart4u).
I could go on and on showing pictures of Matthew but I guess
this is really enough!
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