And to my amazement, it works!

Saturday morning, Kittyboy went to put his foot on the table during breakfast, and I told him no. Then I leaned over to him and said very solemnly - That's one.
He looked at me a little askance, looked down at his foot, and started to lift it again slowly. I told him no - and that's two.
He looked at me. He knew three came next. But what was up with counting right off the bat? And gee, Mommy sounded really serious. Did he want to find out what three was?
Apparently not, because he didn't do it again! (And three was going to be moving his chair back from the table).
It's a "duh!!" but when the counting starts the first time, rather than when the kid makes it apparent he's not going to do it unless you DO count, you get his attention a lot faster.

Massive improvement over "No feet on the table." "No feet on the table!" "Get your foot off the table!...1...2..." and he pulls it off right after two.

On the plus side...

We're learning more about whatever Kittyboy's dairy issue might be. Thankfully, we have an appointment with a doctor Wednesday who might be able to sort this out.
Kittyboy was getting 1-2 (sometimes 3) servings a day of dairy, no more than that, and was doing fine. After a WEEK of that, however - backed up again. Soooo - still too much dairy? After a week. Very confusing. Everything I read and hear of actual "lactose intolerance" says the reaction should be immediate, within an hour or so. We had no clue, we just knew that for potty-training to stick, he absolutely had to be regular. Went back to no dairy, period. I went to County Market one late night, read labels on everything, and came home convinced our lives were over, because lactose is in sooooo many things. It's in the flavor packets in ramen, for crying out loud. RAMEN. To say nothing of bread and margarine. And soy cheese is SO expensive. I bought a package of slices figuring we'd try them out for grilled cheese, but to substitute in everything that formerly had cheese? At roughly 32 cents a slice? And he would LIVE on ramen if I let him. Chili Lime Shrimp is our favorite flavor. Has lactose. Chili - Lime - Shrimp. What about that sounds like it needed milk? But it's in there, read the package. I was not a happy camper that night.
In the reassuring light of day, however, the next morning, I remembered something very important. I didn't read labels when we did our experiment. All we did, ALL we did, was not give him milk or anything containing cheese. He had bread, he had ramen. And we got the wonderful result we did, without removing anything more than milk and cheese. Why would we read labels now? All we need is to get him regular.
So we went back to no dairy again, which is where we are now, and he's regular again and doing REALLY well with potty-training. We just don't understand what the problem actually IS. But at least we have it solved. And Wednesday, we can ask what the game plan is. What do we do first? I'm thinking dairy once a week. We won't even tell him, it'll just be real cheese instead of Tofutti (yes, goofy name, but hey, it melts and he likes it!) in his grilled cheese sandwich. Then twice a week, and so on, figure out what the threshold is. There has to be a threshold, it took a week building up before it was a problem again. Right now, we're doing NOTHING, because we don't want to try ANYTHING. We see the doc - we ask our questions - we make sure we know what we're doing. And in the meantime, we need a calcium supplement, because the soy milk is just not going down easily, and I question the importance of fighting over it if we don't actually have to. He's being such a good sport about the whole deal. When he became constipated again, we explained what was going on - gave a word to the reason why he was crying so much - and that we think it's milk and cheese that causes it, and so he's not going to have those. This morning, we offered him toast and jelly for a second course at breakfast (he has a heck of an appetite now!), and he asked for cream cheese instead. We exchanged the look of "Now it begins, poor thing", and said, "Honey, that's cheese, and it might make you constipated..." "Oh. Jelly." Just like that. Looking forward to straightening this out so he CAN have cheese again.

When you're ready to scream...

... it's time to change your discipline tactics.
Kittyboy has taken to arguing every word I say. Every. Single. Word. And not just, "Okay, it's time for a nap now" followed by (tearfully) "It NOT time for a nap now!!" I was on the phone with my mom today and said something, I don't remember what, I think it was, "I'm so tired," and he immediately piped up, "No, I think you are NOT so tired."
This is called back-talk. Lip. Sass. Insolence. This would never have crossed my mind as a child, because the roof would have caved. I was not a model child myself by any means - I had a passive/aggressive strength of will you would not believe, and was probably the only child in kindergarten to already know the meaning of the term "insubordination" - but outright SASSING my parents? My mom and I argued plenty, but there were limits.
He's lost privileges, had things taken away, it's not worked. There has to be something swift and immediate, a system less forgiving, flexible, and easily played, than counting to three.
How about two chances to IMMEDIATELY comply, followed by consequence? This is what I found on 1-2-3 Autism Free. In Kittyboy's case, I say once no arguing, that's once. I say it twice, we have a consequence. I say once get out of that dirt while we're on a walk, that's once. I say it twice, we have a consequence.
I just need to find a consequence that could be consistent and work. This week has been horrible.