**INFANCY * *

Not that a woman would be ashamed of pregnancy, but she became restrained; many, many things for her at this time would become not so important. She would avoid unnecessary exposure to people. It was believed that the fewer people knew about it, the less gossip, and the less gossip, the better it was for mother and child.
    A word or look of an evil person can injure the soul, hence the expression "evil eye" and the belief in "curse."
Nevertheless, women are almost to the last day working in the field and taking care of the animals (still, it is unknown what is more useful during pregnancy: to sit for two months at home or work in the field). Relatives were to protect women from heavy work. Yet children are often born in the fields, under the sheaf, in the hay barn.
     Most women feeling the approach of labour were hiding in another house, behind the stove or oven, in the bathhouse, and sometimes in the barn and sent for the midwife. Men and children should not have been present at labour. The child's grandmother, either her mother-in-law or mother, has helped with delivery. She shamelessly slapped the baby on the tiny red ass, causing it to cry. The baby's screams mean it is alive. The navel was tied with a strong linen thread.
    Prayers, wishes, and various signs accompanied the birth of the baby. Often, if the bath was not ready, grandmother climbed into a large oven. With water warmed in the samovar, she washed the child in a hot oven underlaid by a rye straw. Then the baby is tightly swaddled, and only after all this is delivered to the maternal bosom and put into the cradle. The squeak of the cradle was accompanied by mothers' or grandmothers' lullabies and sometimes even grandfathers'.
Within weeks, a child begins to sing along to his nanny. Falling asleep after eating or crying, he hummed a ditty under the nose in rhythm to swinging and grandmother's song: Ao-ao-ao.
    Milk was poured into a ram's horn with a specially treated teat of cow's udder; the baby was swaddled in long linen tape. Swaddling comforted a child, did not let him mess around and "kick," and was not allowed to harm himself.
    A soft cradle, woven from pine sticks, hung on the elderberry handle to the wooden mast. The mast is a flexible rod attached to the ceiling log. Although the cradle was swinging quite strongly on a good mast, it gently moved up to seven feet from the floor. Such a swing from the birthday gave a special hardening: sailors of peasant origin rarely had sea sickness.
 The cradle served man the very first, the smallest of space; this scope soon expanded to the size of the hut, and suddenly, the world opened once to the baby in all its breadth and grandeur. The village street went far into the green summer or white winter field. The sky, houses, trees, people, animals, snow and grass, water, and the sun were never the same, and their combinations were replaced every hour, sometimes every minute. And how big is exciting, fantastic and varied joy in one, the essential being your own mother! How rich becomes the world with her brief appearance, as infinitely beautiful, calm and happy feels a tiny creature in such moments!
    Father rarely takes the child in his arms; he almost always appears harsh and causes fear. But how memorable is his fleeting, affectionate smile... And what is a grandmother who rocks the cradle, sings songs, spins yarn, who is omnipresent? Almost all the feelings: fear, joy, resentment, shame, tenderness - are already present in infancy and usually contact the grandmother, who "babysits," rocks the cradle, and takes care of the baby. She also teaches order, gives everyday skills, and introduces the joy of the game and that the world does not consist only of pleasure.
First, simple games, for example, "ladushki," or play with her fingers. After "spitting" the baby in the palm, the old woman began to mix "porridge" with her stiff finger:

 
"Magpie cooked porridge, called her children.
Come over, kids, to eat porridge.
To this one by the spoon - the old woman shaking her pinkie -
 to this one by the ladle - begin to "feed" the ring finger
 - To that one, the whole inch.
To this one - the whole pot!"

 
A personal appeal to each of the fingers caused the increase of interest of the child and the very narrator. When it reached the last finger (the thumb), the old woman was plucking at him, saying: "And thou, a finger-boy, did not go to the barn, did not thresh the peas. You get nothing!"
All of this quickly, with the speeding rate, results in a minor butting into the child's arm: "This is a spring (wrist), This is a spring (elbow), this is a spring ... (forearm), etc. And then there is fresh spring water!" Grandma was tickling a child under his arm, and a grandson or granddaughter came to the happy, ecstatic laughter.
Another rhyming game also has an original storyline devoid of adult guile.
"Ladushki, ladushki, where were you? - At grandma's place. What did you drink or eat? - Kasha cooked. Kasha is sweet, Grandma is kind, Grandpa is harsh.
Hit with the ladle into the forehead."
The end of the joke with a light comical clicking on the forehead caused, for some reason (especially after the frequent repetition), children's excitement, laughter and delight. Such game jokes were in dozens and instinctively made more complex by adults.
 As the child grew and developed, games for boys and girls became more and more apart and distinct. Rhymes, lullabies and other songs, jokes, and tongue-twisters were sprinkled with the baby's name, linked to the strengths and weaknesses of the emerging child character and specific conditions in the home, family, and nature.
The children slept in the cradle until they started walking. Then, however, a new baby came, and they were put to sleep "jack-wise" in the same cradle. In such cases, everything got complicated, especially for the babysitter and the mother ... It also could happen that an uncle was born after his nephew, claiming a place in the cradle. So then, before the separation of the young family, the house creaked two identical flying cradles.
Somewhere in the Russian North-West, in honour of the child's birth, especially the firstborn, the father or grandfather planted a tree: linden, mountain ash, usually birch. If the front yard had no more space, the tree was planted near the bathhouse or in the garden. This birch tree grew together with the child. It is known as Sasha's (or Tanya's) birch. Henceforth, a person and a tree care for each other, keeping the secret of reciprocity.