30 weeks and feeling stressed!!

I wouldn't trade being a mom to Jack for absolutely anything in the world, I love that little guy more than anything....BUT at the same time I'm not afraid to admit that sometimes I just need a break!  I'm not sure whether it's my hormones from being pregnant or the stress of all of the home renovations we've decided to do within the last few weeks, or what but I'm finding myself more irritable lately than ever before.  A big part of it, I know, is that I'm becoming more and more frustrated with the fact that Jack is STILL NOT sleeping through the night in his own bed.  I don't know how other parents do it!  I swear, I could get up 5 times a night and put him back down in his own bed, and he still doesn't seem to catch on.  Almost all of my friends with babies/toddlers have no problem putting their kids down and being done for the night.  The other day I found myself at my wits end because he tests me on every little thing now,  he knows the word "no' but does NOT listen to it, and after the 3rd time of getting a hold of the scissors (which I moved and hid from him several times....kid is sneaky!) I kind of lost it and put him in his room and shut the door.  I've never done anything like that before and immediately felt like the worst mother on earth, I made my bed which took all of 2 minutes and then went to let my hysterically screaming toddler out of his room.  Oh I forgot to mention that on top of not sleeping through the night he has also chosen to refuse going down for a nap for the past 3 days straight!!!  I NEED him to take a nap still, I'm not ready for the no nap thing to happen yet, and from everything I read he is still pretty young for that to happen anyway.  Almost every day this week I find myself looking at the clock at 2, 3, 4:00pm and think to myself "is this kid ever going to nap??"  It's not like I don't try to get him to go down, I try several times throughout the afternoon, he just doesn't want to sleep and would rather play peek-a-boo with the bed pillows.  Today I finally put him in the car at 3:40 and went to Starbucks for a coffee in hopes that he would fall asleep.  We didn't even get to the stop sign at the end of our street before he was out!  Seriously, why can't he just pass out like that at home?!  He's usually a pretty good napper.  I was able to transfer him still sleeping to his bed, he woke up 3 times and i had to go in and soothe him back to sleep, then finally bringing him in my bed where he continued to sleep for 3 hours!!!  So at 6:30pm he finally wakes up and I'm thinking "great, so much for trying to get him down earlier tonight!!"  My conclusion at this point is that for starters he is going through some major separation anxiety issues (again) with me right now.  He's even resisting Johnny's help on things like taking a bath, for whatever reason he screams bloody murder if his own father tries to give him a bath!!  All I know is that I need to figure something out before this baby comes or else both Johnny and I are in trouble! 
I bought a couple books, one being all about how to get your kid to sleep through both naps and the night.  All great advice but most of the "real life" stories told throughout involve letting your kid scream it out and get hysterical for as long as it takes for them to realize you mean business.  I've tried this to an extent and it just seems too cruel....to both myself and to Jack.  I feel as though no baby being described in the stories I read can possibly get as upset and panicked as my child does!  Tonight I seriously HAD IT!  I started to get him to go down at 7:30 and after about 45 minutes he FINALLY fell asleep so I asked Johnny to move him into his own bed.  As soon as he picked him up Jack woke right up and cried for me who was trying my hardest to roll off of the bed as comfortably as possible at that point.  I took him to his room, we laid down, and he just laid their with his eyes wide open staring at me for another 30 minutes!  I was done at that point, my evening was shot, I had no energy left for anything else, no patience, and Jack was STILL awake.  So I kissed him goodnight and left the room.  He became hysterical and immediately crawled out of bed after me.  He followed me into my room where I picked him up and put him right back in his bed.  This continued 14 more times after that with him only getting more and more upset and then afraid of me even picking him up in fear that I'll take him back to his room.  So I laid down in his bed with him and by 9:08pm I was finally able to leave the room.  I don't know what to do.  I keep thinking things will "work themselves out" and maybe they will, but I'm growing more and more fearful of how this will play out when the new baby arrives. 

     Playing with Knuckles which he     pronounces "nung nung" 

The bottom line.......having a Toddler is HARD work!  But like I said I wouldn't trade having the privilege of being a mom for anything, and one look at that little guy makes it all worth it :) even when I'm running on no sleep and my last nerve!

Baby Girl update:
30 Weeks and apparently the baby is about 15 inches long, the size of a cabbage, and is now giving me some serious jabs.  And some serious heartburn!   I'm definitely looking forward to next week and being able to start counting down in single digits!

This Week's Top 5:

1. Grateful that I'm able to see the good in a bad situation (more times than not I guess).....this week has definitely tested my patience on so many levels. 
2.  I'm super grateful for my momma friends who are there to offer up advice and share their experiences with me.  It's crazy how just talking to a friend can put your mind at ease a bit once you hear you're not the only one out there having toddler issues. 
3. The floors are done in our bedroom....THANK GOD.....what a mess and definitely didn't help an already stressed out Momma. Now just finishing up the molding this weekend and then we can start putting things back to normal. 
4. I ordered my new dressers for our bedroom.....yes this is super exciting for me considering we are giving the two we currently use to the kids.  I painted one already and it's been moved into Jack's room.  So now I've got a week to paint the other and get that in the nursery before the new ones come :)
5. I don't really ever talk about the business on here but we did a little makeover of our dining room which is pretty dining as far as cafe seating areas go.  I'm super excited for that to be well on it's way to being done,  it was a LONG time coming and looks so much better!