KTXS-KTAB Video About Brenden

A teacher’s aide lifts a diminutive figure out of a wheelchair, setting him down next to small framework of chrome and plastic. 

It’s a miniature walker — the small orange basket fastened to the front is plastered with cartoon character stickers — and its owner, 7-year-old Brenden Baker, grips the walker’s handles with both hands. 

His eyebrows draw together into a fierce expression and like a shot, he scuttles across the gymnasium floor at breakneck speed, flinging his feet ahead of himself and then swinging the walker into place when they land. Whatever may or may not be in his way seems to be the last thing on his mind.

“Watch out, here comes Hot Rod!” Brenden’s teacher at Bassetti Elementary School, Marsha Stewart, calls out in a joking manner.

Soon the cry is taken up by others in their small party, as Brenden zips from exhibit to exhibit during a field trip to the Abilene State Supported Living Center’s Winter Wonderland exhibit.

Brenden’s mother Kim laughs at the story and says her only son is like that in everything he does. At 26-inches high, Brenden aspires to stand taller than the physical limits of his stature.

Desbuquios is the name of the syndrome that defines the exceedingly rare form of Brenden’s dwarfism. With more than 200 known forms of dwarfism, there have only been 40 other recorded cases like Brenden’s.

“Apparently, Chris and I both carry the gene for this,” she said. “It’s not a spontaneous mutation. It’s rare to have the gene, period. For two people who have the gene to get together and have a child is even more rare. If we had another child, we would have a 50/50 chance for it to have the same form as Brenden.”

Multiple dislocations in hips, legs and other joints make the walker a necessity. At first, learning to live with their son’s disability was emotionally draining. But after nearly eight years, Kim said it has become routine.

“We were telling a friend of ours who has a newborn that having Brenden, in one aspect, is kind of like having an infant or a toddler for many more years than you should,” Kim said. “He can’t independently go to the bathroom. He can’t independently brush his teeth. If he wants a drink from the kitchen, he can use his walker and go to the kitchen, but he’s not able to reach or access anything.”

Brenden recently was in the news after winning a trip to Morgan’s Wonderland in San Antonio, an amusement park designed for children and adults with special needs. Brenden, happily precocious, doesn’t mind the attention and neither does his mother who figures the more exposure her son gets, the more his self-confidence will build.

“People know him when we go out places and that’s good. I know as he gets older in life, people will pick on him, but I figure, if there’s always maybe someone looking out for him wherever he goes, that will help him in the long run,” she said.

That’s becoming more important now as Brenden is beginning to realize his body is different from his classmates in the AIM, or Achievers In Motion, class at Bassetti. The class helps children with a variety of motor skill development delays, but Brenden is noticing he is always smaller than the other kids.

“He’s learning now that he is considerably smaller than his classmates, which is sometimes a hard discussion because he’ll want to get bigger,” she said. “We just tell him no, honestly. ‘You’re going to get a little bit bigger, but you’re not going to be tall like Daddy, you’re not going to be tall like Justin in your class.’”

“He’ll get mad but we don’t want to lie to him. I don’t want him to expect this huge growth spurt when he turns 10. So that’s kind of hard because he gets disappointed and doesn’t understand why he can’t be like everybody else.”

But Brenden isn’t going to let a small thing like height stop him. Sometimes he tells his mother he would like to be a doctor, but lately it’s stage lights that have caught his eye. Part of it can be attributed to Kim, who works the box office at Abilene Community Theatre. Brenden has sat through many productions in the playhouse. Brenden also has a small role in this weekend’s performance of The Nutcracker at Hardin-Simmons University’s Behren’s Auditorium.

“He’s been telling us for a while he wants to be in his own show. He’s got it all laid out,” she said and described what his act might be. “He sings and he’ll use his walker and do a little dance. He’ll sing just about anything, some of it you can’t understand, but some of it is just stuff he’s made up.”