Advice please - 3yo testing mommy

My wife and I have 2 boys, 1yo and 3yo. Well, he turns 3 in a month.3yo is a smart kid. He goes to daycare 5 days a week and by all accounts is a very well behaved kid while he’s there. We’ve never had any negative feedback. Lots of positive feedback.Recently, he has been very testy with mommy. Doing things he knows he shouldn’t be doing. Spitting, licking everything, hitting his 1yo brother, making a mess of recently folded laundry, having accidents when he’s been potty trained for a good 6 months, getting naked at home for no apparent reason, etc. most of this happens when I’m not around but he’ll do it in front of me too. We know he knows better... he knows he’s not supposed to be doing these things. It’s like his brain is wired to do things he’s not supposed to... like it’s a game or something.Just recently (past few weeks) bedtime has become a nightmare. If mommy puts him to bed then he is a terror. Screaming, crying til he coughs and gags. He is fine during the routine but right when mommy goes to leave he just loses it. He gives her a hard time all day long but at bedtime it’s the end of the world when she says goodnight. I’ll end up going up and saying “mommy went to the store” and he’ll fall asleep right away.We’ve done some “time outs” for when he hits. We try and ignore the “small things” as much as we can when he acts out because we think he’s just trying to get a reaction. We do take time to explain why he shouldn’t do certain things ... and I’m confident he knows better.Is all this normal? Is it a phase? Any advice from parents who have gone through this? Should we be concerned about the hitting?Today was the first day out of daycare for 2 full weeks and it was a terrible day for my wife. I’m at work so it’s hard coming home and hearing how bad of a kid he was for her. He was on a mission from beginning to end to be a “bad boy” for his mom. She dropped him off at the gyms daycare for an hour and he was great for them. Then on the way home he started acting out again.His daycare is very structured so we think that might be good for his behavior compared to at home? I don’t know. Talk to me... via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2XAgncu