Why do children attract the crazy people?

We had a good week in New England. So many fun adventures with the family and WONDERFUL friends. We went to New York for a day-ish and spent time in Boston for the rest of our trip.

All of that time meant traveling on public transportation (i.e. the Subway and Trains).

I don't know if I'm just hyper aware of my surroundings now that I have children that I'm in charge of keeping safe or what, but it seems like on nearly every train there was some crazy person creeping nearer to my children. Thank goodness my kids are pretty unaware of what is considered "normal" and not. It saves me a lot of questions like, "Mommy, why is that man yelling at that other man?" (There was a man yelling incoherently at someone who was holding one of those sign advertisements. It was really awkward because we were stuck at the corner waiting for the crossing signal and this man was seriously irate and looked like he was going to try to get Sam to join the tirade next).

Yet, of all of the people we saw this week, the lady on the plane this morning took the first place trophy for crazy.

Although, I don't think she was certifiably insane like many of the people we actually saw on public transportation.

First of all, we got up at 4:40 this morning (that's 1:40 California time). We were tired beyond belief and the boys were on the verge of meltdowns since they hadn't had much sleep last night either. (for the record, they were great this whole trip, even on the plane today with little sleep and some slight delays). As we were getting settled into our seats the lady behind me started grabbing at Aaron saying things like, "Oh! What a yummy, yummy baby! I could just eat you up! Yes I could! I could just eat you up!"

Huh. That's kind of strange.

Then, she starts pulling on his arms through the seat and grabbing at his whole body. I had Aaron in the Moby wrap strapped to me (because I figured if he was strapped to my body he would fall asleep easier) so not only was this lady violating my kid's personal space bubble, she was also violating mine.

As Aaron was getting fussy (as he tends to do before he falls asleep) the lady all of a sudden says to me, "Let me have your baby. Just give him to me and let me hold him."

Uhhhhh....NO WAY!! I told her that he was going to sleep and that I couldn't get him out of the wrap because it was too complicated (total lie).

She kept bugging me to give her my kid! Finally, we pulled away from the gate and started getting de-iced so she had to stay in her seat.

Later, when Aaron woke up from his 3 hour nap (praise God) and Sam was holding him the lady says again, "Let me hold him for a minute!" Sam and I looked at each other and Sam grabbed a pretzel and shoved it in Aaron's mouth saying, "Oh, he's eating right now."

Sheesh people! We were really glad to get off of that plane (and seriously, as we were waiting for the stroller two more people got grabby with Aaron as they deplaned. What happened to the Swine Flu scare?).