I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, I don't really believe in the "terrible twos" per se, in that, I don't believe that the defining characteristic of 2 is combativeness and tantrums. I think these things occur when a child reaches a cognitive level where they need very definite boundaries and when these boundaries are fuzzy and loosely defined that is when you will get lots of combativeness and tantrums. Not to say these things wont happen all, but that it shouldn't be the *norm* daily setting.

From what I've read this is ALL about control, as in, he thinks HE is the one in control of you, your husband, his sister and tries to enforce that at every opportunity. I think you need to stop letting him make the little decisions (i.e. what cup, what food to eat, what colour this or that, where and what in general he plays with) and take this control back and only give it him slowly once he is proven he is able to handle it appropriately. For instance, if he's going to make issues over which cup, then he doesn't get to choose the cup - you do. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't get the drink, fine. He doesn't want the mandarine unless daddy peels it, fine, no mandarine. Once he gets older you could give him limited choice, so instead of "what do you want", it's "which one - this one or that one". Of course, as he has had a taste of control, he's not going to like it much when you take it back, so you'll most probably find you have a couple of foul days of readjustment, but after that I think you'll find he will be a lot less combative and you'll have a calmer household.

That being said, for boys especially, but most kids need an opportunity to get messy/be destructive. If you don't provide this in a controlled manner, they'll find a way to do it themselves. Ripping up newspaper into long lengths is actually really good for their fine motor skills, however, you would need to pick the time and place that this "destructiveness" is conducted.