Thank you all for your recommendations and general support. I got on before work yesterday and read a lot of the responses, but decided to call my pediatrician's office and didn't get a chance to come back and comment. They said it's fairly normal for separation anxiety to pop up again at this age, even if it hasn't been a problem before. They are concerned with the strong emotional reactions to everything else. I spoke to a nurse and she said she wanted to discuss it with the pediatrician and that the ped should be calling me back some time today. Of course, the rules of the universe, yesterday really wasn't bad. We had a bit of obstinacy and a couple crocodile tears here and there, but nothing like we've been seeing.
I took Alix's suggestion before I left for work. About an hour before I put on a necklace that I know she particularly likes and is fairly durable. I subtly made sure she saw that I was wearing it. Then, when she started to get sad when my BIL came over to watch them, I took the necklace off and asked her if she wanted to wear "Mommy's special necklace" until I come home from work to get it. She still cried, but she calmed down and my BIL said she didn't really have any problems after I left. I told her before bed time that if she could try really hard to just close her eyes and go to sleep and not make a big fuss, we'd go on a special play date tomorrow (today). I also reminded her like every night that Daddy would come in and give her hugs and kisses when he got home from work, whether she was awake or asleep. She was fine. She teared up a little, but none even fell. She was awake for a good hour before she fell asleep (another story there) but seemed reasonable happy the entire time.
Today she seems more relaxed too. We've have a couple tears and a couple hollers, but again, no big crying fits.
I appreciate that the two things I tried seemed to work, but honestly, this almost confuses me more. It's like she was a different child for 2 weeks and now seems to be mostly back to normal again. Just like that. I guess we'll see what the pediatrician has to say and how the next few days go.
Alix, I'll see if our library has the book.
Also, I'm not sure about the hand-washing at the babysitter's because I wasn't actually there, but she's crying about all kinds of strange things. Some are normal things that she tends to dislike anyway and she's just reacting much more intensely, some are things that she usually likes.
Thank you again for all the input. I'm sorry if I didn't answer someone's question, but we had a very loud thunderstorm that kept waking me all night and my brain is a bit mushy today!
