Our daughter is almost four and has been going to daycare for a year now -- all of a sudden she is ultra clingy at dropoff. Teachers not noticing any difference during the day, she really loves it there, so I am a bit lost. I have been really busy lately and went out of town for a day -- so I am thinking is this her way of letting us know she needs us more? (I hear guilt's foot steps....)

Don't Feel the steps lurking behind you. My son who just turned 4 had his moments in pre-school for about a week straight.

I would talk to B all morning about what we going to do and discuss things happening in shcool.

I would say "So B we are going to have a fun breakfast, get dressed and I am going to drop you off at school...right?" "You are going to walk straight into the room and not be upset...because you know I am going to come back to pick you up" It didn't work every day but eventually he was fine. It did turn out some girl would not leave him alone and was on him like white on rice but...he got over it.

Both of my girls have gone through stretches like this. They got over it after a time. We talked a lot about what they were going to do that day, and what time I would be back to pick them up. The teachers always assured me that they were completely over it within 5 minutes of my leaving.
I also always could pin the blame on my work schedule, how easy it is to blame ourselves for everything. I think sometimes that's the case, and sometimes it's not.

It's separation anxiety all over again, but on a more sophisticated level. Remember when she was an infant and first realized you weren't omnipresent? Now she realizes you could be gone overnight. No guilt. She just needs to relearn that while mommies do sometimes go away, they always come back. And just as when she was a baby, the same techniques will work now: no sneaking, lots of information and consistency. And your going away was probably a surprise no matter how much you prepped her for it. They just don't operate on the same level as we do. I'm the same in some respects. There are things that I just don't fully understand until I'm there. If I had given it some real thought ahead of time, I would be better prepared, but I tend to live in the moment. Just like a 4-year-old.