Terrible Twos

Our usually sweet, funny and happy smallest Cub has been possessed.  Or had a secret personality transplant without me knowing.  Suddenly, over night, he's turned into a tyrant.  An actual small prince of darkness.  Chaz and I are at a total loss.  I was even googling that super nanny at 3am last night while said monster was screaming like his life depended on it while trying to kick down his door at the same time.  Fast forward three hours  and he locked himself into his bedroom.  The bigger Cub managed to sweet talk him out after a half an hour stand off and he emerged, crosser and louder than ever. 

 I know that the two stage is meant to be terrible, but does it really happen, just that like, the minute they turn two?

I guess him flinging himself out of his cot on the morning of his second birthday was his warning that things were going to change around here;  There would be no more Mr Nice Guy.  No more sleeping, no more doing what asked and no more eating anything unless sugar-coated or Pom Bear shaped. 

This morning we have upped our game.  No Peppa Pig watching and no warm milk until he stays in his bed for more than two hours straight.  It is 8.30 am and we have already had eight tantrums and six time outs. Even poor Alice (our tiny dog) is cowering in the corner, quivering at the prospect of the next tyrannical outburst.  The silver lining - one must always look for a silver lining - is that the bigger Cub is loving his little brother's new dog house behaviour.  As I write he is sitting very quietly and  very smugly on the sofa.  Smiling to himself and chirping up every couple of minutes to ask me just how sweet and how well behaved he is.  Long may that last...

Time out...

I'm told that it's 'just a stage'.  But I'm wondering how much longer Cub Senior is going to keep acting like a small dictator/hooligan/terrorist?  There's only a couple more weeks left when he'll fit into the the terrible twos category and then I'm out of excuses.  What can I blame the screaming, shouting,  tantrums on now?  He's excelled himself in the last month.  We've had more time outs than I care to think about - I put him in a another room for two minutes while he,supposedly, calms down and thinks about what he's done...In reality, he tries to break the door down with a nearby offending wellie/broom/satsuma. The busier I am, the worse he gets. He'll try any tactic he can until he gets my full, undivided attention.  We were photographing the house for the Telegraph magazine yesterday and he was having absolutely none of it.  He did everything he possibly could to distract me culminating with a sensational finale of biting a Karvol capsule in half.  The warning on the box being, 'seek urgent medical attention', meant instead of finishing napkin rings/ironing table cloths etc, I spent an hour on the phone talking to someone from the Poison hotline. 
At 8am this morning he was ordering me to "get into the kitchen and clean!' My disbelief was met with a louder shout of "do it NOW!"  I am terrified at what lies ahead of me; imagine when the smaller one is big enough to do what the bigger one tells him to...