He will NOT sleep anymore... help?

Aiden is a pretty good sleeper.  He has been from the begining.  We had our troubles putting him down while he slept, but not a problem getting him to actually sleep.  We switched him to his big boy crib 2 weeks ago - the first week he slept 8 hours without waking up once!  I was soo happy, it worked!  A month ago I got him to where he would put himself to sleep if I laid him down drowsy.  We've been on a roll.  We didn't even hit the 4 month wakeful - he still slept.

NOT NOW.  I don't know if it's the new first tooth, the impending 2nd tooth, the fact he is desperately trying to crawl, seperation anxiety, that maybe we let him fall asleep being held (mostly in situations where there was no crib for him) too many times lately - no clue, but the kid won't sleep anymore.

He is slowly getting worse and worse at falling asleep on his own.  He will be drowsy and yawning and I lay him down and he screams and reaches up for me.  He has been waking up 3 times a night, and not always does a paci put him back to sleep.  Last night after 30 minutes of him not sleeping at 5am I was desperate and rocked him to sleep.  3 minutes after I laid him down and crawled back into my own bed he woke up.  3 minutes.  3.  Poor Kris had to get up with him at that point because I was spent.  Kris just fed him a bottle - he sat next to the crib and didn't hold Aiden to feed him - and he finally fell back asleep for a couple hours.

The night before, so this would have been Monday night, Kris actually had to sleep in Aiden's room on the floor for about 4 hours so all of us would get sleep.  Aiden watched him through his crib slats and finally fell asleep.  We have even been desperate enough to turn the tv on in Aiden's room trying to trick him with noise.  You know what?  I walked in and found Aiden watching the tv through the crib slats!  Fail!

Tonight we have been trying to put him down to sleep for about 2 hours, and counting.  He was fussy, rubbing his eyes, pulling on his hair and ears (one of his sleep cues - not sure if this is a normal one?) and so we put him down.  He cried.  We fed him his bedtime bottle and he started to act like he was falling asleep in my arm after the bottle.  Key word there is act.  I set him in his crib and he was awake and playing for the next hour.  Kris and I went to bed thinking we would watch tv quietly and wait it out - he had to tire of playing at some point and put himself to sleep, right?  Wrong.  We both jumped out of bed when he heard loud banging noises coming from Aiden's room.  The kid was kicking, and he kicks hard enough to bruise my thigh mind you, his crib.  He was kicking!  He smiled up at us when we looked in on him. 

Now we sit awake as a family in the living room.  Aiden is jumping something fierce in his jumperoo and yawning constantly.  The kid will not give in.  I have even looked over to "catch" him yawning and he quickly giggles and gives me a huge smile.  I'm blogging, Kris is playing Mario on Wii and we are just waiting him out.  It's going to be another long night.

What is going on here?  Anyone else go through this?  He was sleeping soo well, at least 5-6hrs at a time most night and even when he woke up it was just because he needed a paci - he would be asleep again in a minute after he got it.  Now I'm lucky for 2 hours straight of sleep.  Is it normal for them to digress?  I was going to cry it out last month to get him into good sleeping habits, but it turned into 1 day of "fuss it out" and it was a solved problem.  Now I fear I'll need to try again and I have a sneaky feeling this time he will fight it and cry instead of fuss and just give in to sleeping well.  Grr... help.  What can we do??