Is it just me?

Okay, I'm not a perfect mother but I'm also not STUPID! I had an interesting request this weekend. I was shocked because this was not the first time - it was the second time someone has asked me to do this.

The first time was last winter. We took Catherine to see Finding Nemo on Ice at the Boston Garden in Boston. We bought the super-duper expensive "VIP" tickets and ended up being right down on the ice. We were sitting next to a woman and her little boy. He appeared to be about three years old. She was trying to get her son to talk to Catherine, who of course was having none of it! After about 10 minutes she turned to me and said "I'm going to get some popcorn and he doesn't want to come. Can you watch him while I'm gone?". Seriously?? I do not know this woman. She does not know me and now I've been put in charge of babysitting for her. Being that we were in the super-duper expensive seats, she had to walk all the way up to the top of the section to get out to the food consessions. This took quite a while and I began to worry that she dumped him. He was cute enough but we had our hands full already and I didn't really know what to do with a boy anyway.

The second time was on Sunday. We took the girls to have "Tea with Mrs. Claus" at Smolak Farms in North Andover. The kids all sat at the long table and wrote letters to Santa and decorated gingerbread cookies. There was a little girl and a little boy (again about three years old) that was sitting next to Catherine. They were there with their father. We never spoke to each other at all. I was getting Catherine ready to leave because she was not interested in sitting on Mrs. Claus' lap. The father turned to me and said "I have to take my daughter to the bathroom. Can you watch my son for a minute?"

Am I crazy? Is this acceptable?? Because, I do not think it is. I told Bill all about this episode, looking for signs that he thought this was something he might do in that scenario. He passed with flying colors when he was just as shocked. Maybe I need to give myself more credit. I may forget to bring extra diapers sometimes but I have never asked a stranger to babysit my kids!