WEST VALLEY CITY — Alex Brotherson is like other boys his age: He plays baseball, he loves jumping into the deep end of a swimming pool, and he even once rode a skateboard down the stairs.

What sets him apart from his buddies at Robert Frost Elementary is how he starts his school day: He kicks off his shoes. It helps him write better.

Alex was born without arms. He has a single finger on his right shoulder that he uses to carry a paperback book or hit the button on a water fountain.

But the 9-year-old does most everything else with his feet. He writes — with better penmanship than his older brothers, his mom says. He eats and plays chess with his toes.

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He can even ride a bike, crouching down like Lance Armstrong, steering with his shoulders and finger.

Last week, he participated in his school's rite of passage for fourth-graders: lunch duty.

"It's fun," Alex says as he sits on the lunch counter with the cleanup crew, stacking trays with his plastic glove-encased feet. "It's fun to help."

Alex adapts. As a baby, he didn't crawl — he scooted on his bottom. His parents, Jenny and Jeff Brotherson, used to wince when he was learning to walk. Without arms, Alex can't break a fall. He often banged his head.

But when he started school, his kindergarten teacher had her son teach Alex how to fall like a soccer player, to the side, so he doesn't get hurt, his mom says. He wears a helmet when he goes out to play.

His mom is surprised Primary Children's Medical Center hasn't named a wing after him, with all his bumps, bruises and concussions, many suffered while proving a point.

"He would not be as far as he is if he weren't ... out to prove somebody wrong," says Cindy Rogers, a Granite School District occupational therapist who has worked with Alex since he was in kindergarten. "He uses his toes like they were fingers — he can put his shoes and socks on faster than you and I. I had heard he played baseball and all this stuff, and I thought, yeah right. But he does."

He climbs on a step stool-like chair in the lunchroom. He washes his feet with a baby wipe, then uses his toes to unwrap and plunge straws into juice boxes, eat a sandwich or pick up Cheetos. At home, he sits on the counter top to do dishes when it's his turn.