rant

I need to vent for a minute. Today Jamie (my sister) and I took our boys to the play area at the mall. It's one of those squishy areas with stuff to climb on. Campbell is by far the small kid, but he's holding his own, mainly just crawling on this one lady bug and watching the big kids run around. Then this cute little girl comes up who looks to be about 4 years old. She pats Campbell on the head, as most big kids do--why, I'll never understand, so I'm thinking, ahh how sweet. But then she became obsessed with us. She would NOT leave Campbell alone. She kept hugging on him and trying to pick him up. At first I was trying to be funny and said, "He's too big for you to pick up, silly." To which she replied, "I've got muscles!" Well, excuse me! As she continued to get all up in Campbell's face, I confess I got extremely annoyed. I mean, I'm not one of those moms who doesn't want any other kids to touch my child, but come on, this was a little much. After about her 4th attempt to pick Campbell up, I said, "I really don't want you to pick him up." But she was unwaivering. She basically chased us around the play area for the next 15 minutes or so. Finally her mom came over to talk to her and tell her to leave Campbell alone. She said to me, "I'm sorry, she's just obsessed with babies right now..." Well get her a baby doll I thought to myself but didn't say for fear of making a public spectacle of myself. But the thing was, she didn't listen to her mom. She continued to pester us off and on until Jamie and I finally decided to leave. So, my question to you other moms and anyone else who can shed some insight on this situation is, was I right to be totally annoyed by this little girl? I don't want my child to become one of those children who won't play with the other kids, but I also don't want him attacked by crazy kids. Any ideas on the best way to handle that sort of thing? Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. Let me know your thoughts.