preschool struggles

Well, it seems that Landon really isn't liking preschool. It all began at his Valentine's party there on Feb 9. Since then he has hated it - begging me to leave him in the car while I go inside, fighting not to go, then refusing to let go of me when we do arrive. One day he even had a couple of tears escape after I left :-(
So I had to call today to see what's up. It all stems from that party. That day when I picked him up he was sad, he said that his cookies weren't eaten because someone said there's 'too much sugar' in them (they were iced roll-out cookies, in the shape of hearts - nothing too fancy). I do believe this all stems from that careless comment made by a volunteer mom, no doubt (really, would a 3 year old kid say there was too much sugar in anything??!!). We are going to send cookies to preschool for his birthday party on Thursday - hoping to replace a bad cookie experience with a good one. This time I think I'll buy Oreos and leave it at that (I don't need to feel bad about my baking skills too!). Landon doesn't want to bake cookies, he said he doesn't like the other kids :-/ He has related an incident where someone yelled at him "Get out of here! You're not supposed to be here!" I think this was most likely some kid wanting to keep the toys they were playing with to themselves, but I wonder if Landon took that to mean he wasn't supposed to be at preschool?

If that doesn't work, I'll volunteer to see how things happen at preschool. It's really heartbreaking -- he absolutely LOVED preschool up until that day, and I so hope we can get that magic back for him. Plus I simply don't want to face the fight to get him there, and then deal with him when I pick him up (he's horrible for about an hour, yelling, screaming, sulking, throwing things, hitting ... ). I know that preschool is valuable for him (and me), but not if it's a horrid experience for him -- and I am contemplating pulling him out, at least until the fall, if things don't turn around.

The teachers say he has a lot of fun at preschool (she hadn't noticed anything was wrong at all). He's got some buddies that giggle and play together, he loves the trucks and trains. He enjoyed the ambulance that was at the school today (although he didn't even want to tell me about it when I picked him up, just throwing his hat and colouring book all over the car and pouting). After an hour, he did admit to having some fun, and told me all about the ambulance -- but that was a looooong hour to get to that point.

Anyway, that is where we're at. Hopefully Thursday can bring some positive memories into his head. I'm open to suggestions on this one ....