Hi Jenni, completely agree with euphy, she may not have wanted the others to be curious about you.
And if her other son was crying for you and talking about you constantly then maybe she wanted to try to turn off the conversation with her "No........." as she may have felt it would encourage the constant talking.
And you know maybe another possibility was that she was feeling a little resentful towards you at that time. I mean with all that focus on you (the crying, the constantly talking about you) instead of some of that being on her/his mom.
But before I move on , might very well be nothing (or nothing more than he likes you) but the crying............constantly talking about you............do you think you could maybe talk to him a little about how things are at home??? Could possibly be some issues there e.g. he isn't feeling that he's getting enough "attention", he's feeling unsettled for some reason.............?? Like I said might very well be nothing but.........you know in case..........
And, the "pretty" thing............well you know attractiveness can be completely subjective anyway, what one person might see as attractive another person might think the opposite and vica versa. If not this woman then there is highly likely to be someone else who thinks you are pretty.
That, and kids might see past "appearances" but they don't see past boring that often, so not only can't you be as boring as you think you are, you must have more about you too for the kids to like you that much.
So come on, stop selling yourself short what do you reckon?? Maybe you're attentive, caring, supportive, helpful.................?? Maybe all of them and more!!!!
And real respect for doing so well with the kids by the way!!!!

Alison