Adaptable Alex

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.

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.

His classroom chair is higher than his desk, so he's not wrenching his hips to do schoolwork. He's also learning to use the computer via Morse code. He types code with foot pedals, which the Darci computer program translates into letters. That, Rogers believes, will protect his hips and back, while allowing him to become computer proficient.

But on other stuff, Alex wants no exception.