Now I have to say that Zach did many things very very early in life.  He  has what is known as "regressive autism".  To me this is cruelest form of autism  and it really messes with your mind.  A child with regressive autism develops normally, often times hitting milestones much earlier than usual, only to have many of these skills just disappear one day.  True to form of most children with this disorder, Zach developed his skills and they started to disappear somewhere around the age of 18-20months.
He  was a very early walker.  He was only nine months and he was so tiny.  It seemed so strange to see this little munchkin  tooling around so effortlessly.  I can't remember a time when he didn't crawl and he was scaling steps by 5 months of age with grace and  ease.   He was also saying many words, actually putting three words together at seven months of age. ( I have it on old V.H.S  zach sitting on my inside porch looking right at the camera and stating " I-wanna-go-out.") I was so proud of him and in awe.  He loved books and he loved to be read to.  The Foot Book was one or his all time faves and we read it until the pages wore out.    So what the hell happened?  The best way for me to describe it is as follows
Zach was a normal child with a few odd behaviors ( such as his super highway compulsion, the ability to burst into tears or burst out laughing at the most random and unusual times, and some strange fascinations with his eyes. He liked to crawl under tables and follow the patterns of the wall with his eyes)  These behaviors were unusual but he was so damn cute, charming and lovable I just thought he was becoming eccentric.  Over time though all of these eccentricities started to become very pronounced and he began to start ignoring people so he could go off into his own world.
It really messes with your mind when you are gone all day,  you come home, and your child barely notices you walked through the door, or looks right past you to see what is in the bag you have in your hand.  The match-box cars  became an obsession that was starting to really worry me.  I mean he slept with them, he had 5-6 in his hands at all times, he would try to eat while holding his match-boxes, he couldn't ride in the car without having one with him.  This was around the time I started to suspect that this was a lot more than a childhood passion. It was an obsession, and in my mind these cars were getting in the way of communication.  They were his LIFE-LINE.  I finally panicked and one day while he was at my mom's house  I packed them all up, every one of them.  I searched the house high and low to make sure I got them all.  I placed them in a huge box ( by this time we had accumulated hundreds) and put them in the trunk of my car.  My intentions were good, I wanted him to start interacting with ME and not those damn cars.  As I am writing this now I realize how desperate I was to do that.  He loved those cars, they made him feel safe and happy and I snatched them away from him with no explanation.   I know  I meant well but it still makes me sad.  I was SO uninformed  to believe what I was doing was in his best interest.  I now know that when a child with autism has a Passion ( yes a passion, not an obsession) you need to build on it, honor it and use it as a teaching tool.  I just didn't know any better yet I still feel guilty to this day, that I put him through that. He came home from my moms and was frantically running around the house looking all over for his precious cars.  Mind you, at this time almost all of his speech was dwindling away but in a fit of panic and I believe desperation,  his big blue eyes made direct contact with mine( eye contact was another trait that was slipping away) and  he asked me  in a very matter-of-fact tone,  "what happened?"
I wish I had an answer.