Help, My daughters won't stop fighting

I've moaned so much about the summer holidays that I've even started to bore myself. For some reason I had this crazy idea in my head that it was supposed to get easier as my children got older but I can tell you right now - that this has been the worst summer of my parenting years... EVER and that's quite a statement as I've been a mum for nearly 21 years.

I'm not totally sure what went so wrong...but it's been bad.

No1 son has worked his way through the holidays back in his uni town and as I moaned about him not having a job last summer I can't say a word about his lack of visits this year (who said being a mum is easy?). Anyway he isn't the problem, it's the other three.

I say three but what I really mean is the girls.

They've always fought but then been friends in equal measures, until this summer that is.

I don't know what has happened to them but during this holiday they've ground me down with their constant fighting and messiness and no matter how I react it continues all day - every day.

Sonny has taken refuge in his bedroom, working on one Lego project or another or playing Xbox live with his friends. He's had enough too.

I know that sisters fight, I certainly fought with mine, she's seven years older and was always charged with my care. She resented me - I get that. She wanted to be the baby of the family and I took that away from her too. We never resolved things and don't see or speak to each other from one year to the next. We've nothing in common and have no interest in each other at all. I really don't want that for my girls.

There's just eighteen months between them, they go to the same school and they share all of the same hobbies. They've both tried other things but it always comes back to their shared love of dancing. On paper they should be the best of friends but the way they speak to each other can be so vile that it makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry.

We've tried splitting them up, giving each of them one to one time, explaining how their behaviour is impacting on all of us - but nothing changes and I really don't know how to make things better. 

Is it just girls? Is it just my girls? 

HELP!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Gallery...... Ugly

Well Ms Cain really did pull it out of the bag this week....  but I have had this pic in my mind since I read her prompt.

I have a sister. We have never really seen eye to eye and now in reality we have no relationship at all. I bumped into her a couple of days ago and she commented that she liked my blonde hair. I replied that it had been this way for more than two years....

I have never really had a relationship with her. She is seven years older than me and of middle child syndrome (her not me). For half of my life I wanted nothing more than her attention, her acknowledgement, her time of day. I have a very strong memory of the summer when I was seven years old. My parents were both working full time and my fourteen year old sister was charged with my care.

She left home every morning at around 9am and returned at around 3pm - with a bag of penny sweets to buy my silence. 

It was a long and lonely holiday fueled by a diet of Salad Cream sandwiches and threats.

To be fair, we never really made it past that summer. Come the new school term I saw her smoking with her friends and duly reported her to our parents. There was no going back. The future for us included; broken bones (mine, when she kicked me), resentment (me having a baby before her), joy (hers at me being told that I would spend the rest of my life in a wheel chair), anger (hers at me not listening to the medical experts and getting on my feet again), abandonment (both of ours, as we realised there is no place in our lives for each other).

This picture has always troubled me. I  think it's really ugly and as my girls grow I see and feel their fractious relationship every single day. Here it is in it's infancy.

If I could ask for one thing of my girls it would be that they love, cherish, honor and support each other above all things. I truly hope that they can have the relationship that I wish I had with my own sister.

Update... 7/04/10
Hello sisters of choice....

Thank you for your kind words. When I wrote this it made me feel kind of alive  for having shared but now following all the comments and tweets I re read and started really bawling!

I do wish that I had a sister - a real sister and not someone that was just after a part of me but I have learned recently that we can create our own family... Isn't that what you do when you get married anyway?
So here I would like to stand tall and say a very big THANK YOU to the sisters that have stood by me. Some of them new, some of them not so. 
Kirsty (eek, you were well and truly at the coal face and I will never forget that you had to tell my mum).
Nat (my first Twitster... god only knows how we first bonded over Stokke!).
Claire Bear (no words needed.....apart from gin, beer, champers, wine, 7pm).
Tara (we are yet to meet...though my dream says you are going to punch me... I forgive you).
Jo (she who is not a blogger, who shares most of my 'spare' time.. you are a very beautiful person... yes... you. See you on Saturday xx).
Rosie ( you are the beautiful blonde Blythe sister of my dreams.... what more can I say?).
Josie (we have been to the same place and returned).