[Kitsa]

I hear you, but I don't know that this particular little hellion had a spectrum disorder. He was making eye contact with various people, vocalizing well, etc. Maybe "no boundaries" parenting and an actual disorder are getting closer and closer in their manifestation.

Anyway, autism or not, the toddler nearly went over a rail headfirst. I've heard one child's skull crack open before, on the marble floors of Water Tower Place in Chicago, and I have no desire to hear it ever again. I was trying to calculate how fast, with my particular limitations, I could make it to the rail and make a grab for him if someone else couldn't get to him first.

No matter what was wrong with the child, there was no excuse for the mother's whole laissez-faire attitude and her not making the slightest attempt to manage him.