Issues getting back into cage

Hi everyone! Again, thank you for taking the time to help me in this journey. We are about a month and a half into developing a bond with our YN Amazon, Soda. I'm trying to get some feedback on getting Soda to go into his cage at night. Currently, we are moving his cage from the room he sleeps in to our living room area to allow for some bonding time with the family. We typically leave him out of the cage when we are not home so that he is not confined for long periods of time and move him to the "common" area where family is when we are home. Last night, once back into his room, he literally refused to go back into his cage. Stepping up onto our arm is currently not doable as we are still working on him stepping up onto a dowel. Last night he started grabbing it with his foot and trying to take a piece out of it. He's normally not that aggressive with it, not happy to see it but not really aggressive. After about 30 minutes we had to start draping the sheet we cover him up with at night onto the cage to limit where he could go and he eventually he had no choice but to go into his cage and certainly wasn't happy about it. So, I guess my question is .. what would you have done? We've not, at this point, gotten a true routine established with him going back into the cage and it's often just a matter of us closing it up when he goes in for water/snack or just to sit on a perch. We're going to continue working on him stepping up onto a perch but even that is slow coming as he's still not wanting to eat fresh veggies, fruits, nutriberries ect, so we're having a hard time "rewarding" him for good deeds. Thanks again for the input. I know with all the information that is provided here, we're going to get there eventually.

Soad's Mom

Assure that food and water is always inside the cage until you Fully have Step-Up in place.

Hmmm, stubborn Amazon -- have never heard of that before...

Really need to develop the Step-Up response as it is the foundation for everything else.