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Yesterday, Baby J and I were sitting outside with my friend, Aurora, and her baby, Baby Jay, while Aurora and I had coffee. Baby J was in a pretty good mood -- he had seen lots of other babies that day, and I was holding him up to let him jump up and down on my lap.

In case you have never met or seen Baby J, jumping is basically is second favorite thing in the world, right behind eating. One day, he started to cry, and Freckles picked him up to let him jump and he stopped crying immediately and beamed.

Anyway, it was a pretty day, Baby J was getting his fix while I got mine in the form of decaf coffee (I swear, if I was a smoker determined to quit, I'd probably just become addicted to nicotine gum), and generally things seemed right with the world.

Baby J smiled brilliantly at me and reached out to hold my face in his hands. He looked so sweet, I totally melted.

So much so that I guess I didn't notice what he was doing.

Two seconds later, I glanced back at him from my survey of the parking lot and area, and realized there was blood splattered on his forehead and eyelid.

"Oh my God!" I screamed -- thinking that he was hurt. He looked at me and smiled, as if he wanted in on the screaming game too.

The more I frantically surveyed him in search of injuries, the more obvious it became: he wasn't splattered in his own blood, he was splattered in mine.

"Oh my God!" I said again, more softly, "did he just claw my face?"

Aurora stopped laughing long enough to confirm that the blood was from me -- during his sweet smiling phase, Baby J had evidently found a way to claw me across the chin and the wound was now bleeding profusely.

Dabbing at the blood pouring from my face with a burp cloth, I packed Baby J up to take him home "so Mommy can disinfect her face."

In case you were wondering, Baby J thought the whole episode was hilarious.

They don't tell you, in childbirth class, about the sharp little nails.