Fighting amongst my offspring

This past week, the girls have been fighting. A lot.

Usually it's over some "thing". For instance, yesterday Ivy was holding a marker. She puts it down on the coffee table, and walks away to get something else. Story saw that something her sister was holding is no longer in her possession, so she grabs it. Ivy has a sixth sense about those things, and she immediately senses that something she once had is now in the hands of her enemy.

So, Ivy shouts at the top of her little lungs, "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!! Story took my marker!" She used that sing-song voice that usually accompanies "Nah nah nah boo boo." Nothing irritates me more.

"Story! Give it back!" I yell.

Story responds to this admonishment by running around the living room gleefully in her tutu (and nothing else, the preferred method of wearing it). Ivy chases her, I start counting....and eventually we all three end in tears.

But, what's fair here? Ivy did put it down. But she did have it first. How am I going to judge who should get the marker? Story definitely only took it because Ivy had it, but Ivy put it down. In these cases, I most often have to end up taking it away from both of them, which causes a volcanic meltdown of mega proportions, and I try to avoid those if at all possible.

If I let one of them keep it, I can't seem to interest the other one in anything, even CANDY!

Sometimes I get all Biblical on them and try to cut whatever it is in half in hopes that one of them will sacrifice it to the other.....but this always backfires, too.

I like it when my husband is home, because then I can pass the job of judge on to him. I just try to ignore the ensuing fight when one of them takes something the other one had in the hopes that his toleration for screaming is less than mine, and he'll step in and deal with it. (Please don't tell him because he might try to outlast me.) Then, when the offended party starts crying, Mommy can step in and be "good cop."

And I can only imagine this getting worse- what happens when they fight over clothes? Boys? Really, am I going to threaten to cut little Johnny Smith in half when they both like him?

Hopefully I'll figure it out. Soon. But, let's be honest- I probably never will.