Rough Day for Little Miss

I got a call from Little Miss' school about her behavior. Apparently she was being pretty defiant this morning, refusing to participate in any activities and generally being a pill. That wasn't enough to warrant a phone call, but when her teacher tried to redirect her to an activity Little Miss apparently stomped her foot and shouted into the teacher's face, "I don't have to listen you! I want my Mommy!" THAT warranted the phone call. After they told me what happened, they put her on the phone with me and mostly she just whimpered in my ear and didn't want to say anything. I was gentle with her trying to understand how and what she was feeling, but all she would say is, "I miss you and Dad said you would pick me up early." I explained that I would do my best to pick her up early, but in the meantime she needed to listen to her teacher. I spoke to her teacher again, and by the time we were off the phone she said Little Miss was participating in the activity they were doing at the moment. I picked her up on time and as I looked into her classroom when I got there, she seemed to be doing fine. When she saw me she was really excited and started running toward me, but then quickly started to frown and hang her head as she came to me. Once she got to me just buried her head in my neck. When I asked how the rest of her day had been she said "Great." Her teacher defined it a bit differently. She indicated they had a couple of other incidents throughout the day, but the two hours prior to my picking her up had been pretty good. I told Little Miss there would be consequences for yelling at her teacher and not listening and asked her to come up with something she thought was fair. She landed on no dessert tonight. I like that she is able to identify her own consequences and we agreed to no dessert. She apologized to her teacher and she also apologized to me and said she would do better tomorrow. I can't ask for more than that! Well, tonight at bedtime she told me that she doesn't want to go to school tomorrow. Now, this seems to be something we go through every few weeks where she tells us that she wants to stay home and that she doesn't like school. When we try and talk to her about why she doesn't like school, the story varies from, "Because everyone is mean to me." to "I just want to be home with you." Tonight, she had no concrete reason other than, "I just don't like it." Now, I have absolutely no evidence that anyone is mean to her. When I pick her up she is always playing with other kids and when I drop her off other kids are often excited to see her. It's also really common for her to hug her friends goodbye when she is leaving and her teachers adamantly deny that anyone treats her badly. In fact they tell me she usually seems to be having a lot of fun. Little Miss is a home body all the way. She loves to be at home more than any other place in the world, well except maybe the park. Part of me loves that she likes to be at home with us so much, but part of me is concerned that she may not be developing the important social connections she needs. Sometimes she plays well with others and sometimes she's bossy or standoffish. I wonder if her definition of kids being mean to her is really translated  to, "They don't do what I want them to do." For the most part I try and let her figure that stuff out on her own. I really think the best way for her to learn those skills is to be around others and figure out what works and what doesn't. But I'm concerned that at this tender age she talks about not liking school and seems all too happy with the thought of staying home and not seeing other kids. Another part of me wonders if I'm just being manipulated and there is little to this other than a child who thinks staying home means that we do the same stuff we do on the weekends, which is sleep late, watch movies and do special activities. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day for her.