By seven months, most babies have no trouble picking up toys and passing them hand to hand. Your baby may have already started to play "drop the rattle," a game familiar to parents everywhere.

If you think your baby's deliberately flinging objects to the floor, you're right. He's busy collecting important information about the world and his actions, refining his understanding of cause and effect. Sometime in the next month he will begin using a pincer grasp, picking up small objects with his thumb and pointer finger.

Seven months is also a key time in language development. Your baby doesn't understand what you say, but he is starting to recognize the words you use most frequently. Once he remembers words like "mommy" and "daddy," the next big step is knowing what they mean.