How do you protect your children with out being paranoid?

Lilith is only 22 months and wears a 3t. She is super tall and lean which is the body type I would choose for myself if I could. The problem is that by the time I find pants that fit her length, they are falling off. I am going to have to start looking for toddler belts as even most of the pants with elastic waists are still too loose. She eats well, a lot healthier than I probably did at her age. She still breast feeds 3-4 times a day which I have read makes babies and toddlers leaner and taller than average. I am sure my being 5'9" and her father being 6'4" also adds to her super tallness too. I still feel like dressing her in a Godzilla outfit and setting her loose to stomp a Lego town somewhere. She is usually significantly taller than other children her age. People think she is older than she is. Some would say I need to get her a spokes deal or a modeling contract.
This brings me to the reason for this post...It makes me worry about her too as she is the kind of child that people notice. My mother said I was/am the kind of person people never forget (this has been both good and bad in my life) but I am honest enough to be able to admit that I was never as attractive as Lilith is. Am I just a proud mother, maybe but every time I take her out anywhere, people fawn over her. Honest. I hear how beautiful she is everyday. It still bothers me when adult men fawn over her. I find myself acting like a mother bear. This is something that my mother use to do and something I SWORE I would never do if I was ever to become a parent myself. Yet, here I am at Fred Meyer and some strange man comes over and starts telling me how lovely Lilith is, and I pull her closer to me and mumble, "thank You" while giving the strange man the, "touch her and I will bite your arm off buddy" look that my own mother perfected in my youth. Most people are well meaning I am sure but I just can't help it. I had several friends that were abused in their childhoods and shared their story's with me. I had one male friend whose mother refused to believe that his stepfather was sexually abusing him even after his older sister walked in on my friend at 3 years old in bed with the step father and tried to tell her. I had another friend whose mother was very into the drug scene and hosted parties during one my friend (who was 12 or 13) was lured out to the woods behind her mothers house and raped by an adult man who was at the party. She never told anyone as she thought for years, and maybe still tells herself to this day, that it was consensual even though she didn't know this man and tried to get him to stop at which point he told her to be quite.
I've had other friends and relatives (both male and female)that were abused and have shared their stories with me. I myself was told to never talk with strangers, to report to a woman (especially a mother with kids) or a person in uniform if I was ever lost, etc etc. But I was also allowed to walk to the store by myself at 7 years old in San Jose, California. I was also allowed to take several public buses with my friends to go to the malls without parental supervision when I was 12. My mother even allowed me to take the atm card and credit cards but I was only allowed to spend $20 (I always stuck to the $20 dollar limit at that age but it was totally different at 15 years old). I can't see myself allowing Lilith to do some of these things. I was reading another persons blog about how she felt she had done her children a disservice by having the stranger danger talks with them at 3 years old because she herself had been helped by strangers as a child. I don't know, have times changed that much since the 70's when I was a little? or are the police/media/families just reporting it more now when something bad happens to a child. I really don't know what it is but I do know that it makes me paranoid. I don't want to lock Lilith away like Kira sedgwicks character did in the movie "loverboy" (you'd have to see it to understand, it is worth a rent) but I don't want to allow her so much freedom that it invites the opportunity for predators to move in either. I had my first car at 15 years old and came and went as I pleased. I use to skip school with a couple of friends and drive to cities over 100 miles away to shop and hang out. Now as an adult, I look back and realize how dangerous that was. I know my mother had no idea where I was. You see the police grilling these parents about their children's where abouts in the movies and on TV and portray these parents as neglectful if they don't know where there children are every minute. Heck we even have cell phones marketed t o parents of young children with gps in them. I know parents that have DNA and finger print kits for their children, just in case. Has it really come to that? Do we need to have the chip implanted next (my cats have home again/pet finder chips that were placed by the place I adopted them from. not at my request, it was standard practice for that facility)?
It is especially hard because Lilith does look older than she is and she is so attractive. What do the other mothers out there do? Am I just being paranoid?
Should I order the stranger safety videos (see the photo of the one from the makers of Baby Einstein above), tattoo Lilith's social security number or some other identifier on the sole of her foot? What is a parent to do? I know I shouldn't even have this blog filled with photos of her as it too is potentially dangerous. That brings up a whole other series of concerns, Internet safety... yep there is a video for that too.