Most Disturbing Family Picture Ever

First of all, I do not know that this is actually a family picture. I rather hope not. But when one is perusing an old box of random pictures of one's family through the ages and one comes across this loose, unidentified gem, it gives one (okay, enough with this "one" stuff, let's just say me) pause:

I mean, seriously. What. The. Heck.

Foreground: Innocent baby on a blanket. Birds chirping. Peaceful winds blowing. 

Immediate background: A maniacally ruthless, hungry, mouth-frothing, possibly bedeviled or otherwise malevolently empowered likely undead alligator looking at said infant. 

Babies are some of my favorite things. I was once one myself, actually, and my little sister (also once an infant) is having her own this year, a much-anticipated event here in Jennybeeland. 

Alligators, though, are something else entirely. In my subconscious, they are the embodiment of all evil, dread, threat, and general badness. When I have nightmares, I almost always find an alligator (or crocodile, same difference when their big snapping jaws and infamous death rolls are upon you in your sleep) in there somewhere. Sometimes the nightmare has an actual alligator, sometimes it's a sign with something about an alligator, sometimes it something as simple as Dream Me realizing the shoes I'm wearing are alligator skin just before everything starts going wrong. They're insidious, I tell you. Creepy, creepy, creepy. 

At any rate, alligators are not on my friends list. So, to find this picture inexplicably mixed in with the photos of my ninth-grade piano recital and my family riding carousel horses at Libertyland and my once-toddler brother gnawing on a remote control was a little startling. 

I suppose I should ask my parents for an explanation. Maybe there's glass in front of the child? Maybe it's a stuffed alligator at a natural science museum? Maybe it's the sacrificial first child that came before me? (I haven't read the entire United Methodist Church's Book of Discipline, so no telling what's actually in there.) 

Any theories? Explanations? I'm a little afraid to ask.