Out of control toddler!

I know that when we have children there is no manual or book that can teach you everything there is to know about raising children. So far, I have been pretty lucky with my children. My oldest has always been well behaved and very intelligent. My twins for the most part, they are well behaved in public. My daughter is a drama queen which I have written about before. She just cries all the time and acts as if she were dying over the tiniest things. It does test my patience but no one tests my patience more than her twin brother!

He looks sweet and innocent and soo cute. He is very friendly and outgoing and isn't afraid to talk to strangers (which can be a bad thing in a way). He has been caught twice holding strangers' hands in public! LOL... At home, he is just a terror. He is very hyper active and he realllly knows how to push my buttons. When we ask him or tell him to do something he will just stare at us as if he is looking right through us. He does NOT want to be told to do ANYTHING. He gives us a look as if he is saying, "Who the Hell do you think you are telling me what to do?". Something as simple as telling him to "come here" turns into a big battle because he will just stare at us and NOT do anything he is told to do. If we tell him to stop doing something he will usually just stare at us and continue doing it or he will wait until we turn our back and then do it again and again and again. There are things he knows he is not supposed to do and I know that he knows because as soon as he notices us looking he will stop doing it. Im really worried that he is going to be our "trouble" child. He gives us so much difficulty and stresses me out to the point where sometimes I feel like I'm about to have a nervous breakdown! I know they say that no child is born a "bad seed" and that they are just testing their boundries, however, he knows what his boundries are! I'm not one of those parents who talk a lot of crap but then don't follow through with it. When I tell him, "if you do this again you are going to go in time out"..then he will go in time out! I've seen a lot of parents that just let their kids get away with everything with no punishment and I told myself I would not be like that. It still doesn't matter to him! He KNOWS he is going to get in trouble but he still insists on doing it over and over and over. I have tried every technique that I can think of. Spanking doesn't work. Most of the time he will just look at us with a dirty look and not even cry! Time out doesn't work. He will cry the fake cry (if you are a parent, you know what the fake cry is!..no tears, just wanting attention). I've tried taking things away from him. I've tried rewarding good behavior. I have tried sitting down with him face to face and talking to him nicely...NOTHING works!! I've tried giving him extra attention thinking maybe that's what he was trying to get, but that didn't change anything. I'm at my wits end and don't know what to do with him! At first I thought it was just me and my short fuse but I've realized it's not just me! My husband gets frustrated with him, my mother gets frustrated with him, my mother in law gets frustrated with him, even my 94 year old grandmother gets frustrated with him! When he was younger we thought maybe he had hearing problems and that's why he didn't listen to us, but he hears just fine!! I've often wondered if he has some sort of ADHD or something along those lines but from what I've read they don't test them for that until around 5 years of age.

It's been stressful for us enough over the past few years as we went from having no kids to having 3 within a year! My doctor gave me the wrong dosage of birth control and we ended up pregnant with twins when our oldest was only 3 months old. Our twins were born 4 days before our sons first birthday! It's already a stressful situation to be in and my son just makes it 20 times worse and I don't know what to do anymore. He's only two (will be 3 next month)! I'm the parent, I'm the one that should be in control but it's a constant battle for that control. He is extremely intelligent when he wants to be and he has me worried about what the future holds for us and his behavior! I thought at first it was just a phase but so far the phase hasn't ended. He has been this way ever since he has been old enough to be able to comprehend instructions. Any kind of advice would be appreciated! Like I've said, I have tried everything that I can think of and every strategy I have even heard of and so far nothing works! Right now I'm scared that we might even end up losing our family dog because of him. My son is always smacking him in the face, jumping on him, grabbing him and shaking him and he is always getting in his face while he is sleeping. The dog has snapped at him a few times as a warning but I'm afraid that one day he will get tired of it too and really go after him. I've told my son 4 million and 1 times to leave the dog alone. I've sat down and talked to him calmly about it, I've punished him for it, but the minute I turn around my son will be right there in the dogs face again. I do NOT want to have to get rid of our beloved dog because my son is too stubborn to listen!! I don't want to get in trouble if our dog snaps at him. I think my dog has been very good and patient putting up with our son because I would have bit him a long time ago, LOL! It wont be fair to our dog if he has to go to a new home because our son wont listen!

P.S. He is the blondie in the previous post!