“Dogs are just like children, you have to give them a firm hand and lots of discipline,” the store lady said. She looked pointedly at the two children giggling loudly behind me.

This was day four of a weeklong vacation with my eight-year-old daughter and her best friend.

I hadn’t even noticed the girls were misbehaving until the lady arched her eyebrow. Somewhere around day two I started tuning out anything that didn’t sound like bloodshed. I was starting to feel like a mediator in a war zone.

There had been many little squabbles but the major ones were over the Barbie with the sparkly ring (there were about 20 others to choose from), the special chair (it looks like all the other chairs), and the closet which seemed like a perfect place for a fort, for one.

To get them out of the house, and away from the contentious special chair, my husband and I took them to visit some cousins.

The four of them got along famously, but the moment our girls said goodbye they were going at each other again.

Jane yelled: “Mary wouldn’t let anyone else choose the song!”

Mary shouted: “Jane is a tattle tale! I never did that!”

The two of them sobbed all the way home.

My frazzled husband said: “This can’t be normal.”

I shrugged. I recalled my own epic battle with a friend that involved jumping in and out of windows, running around the house and screaming. The source of the argument was a butterfly drawing my friend insisted I’d nicked from her.

“You haven’t spent much time with little girls, have you?” I asked.

“Maybe we should take her friend home in a little while,” my husband suggested hopefully.

Once we reached our house however, the girls jumped out of the car and ran inside house holding hands. For the next hour, they ran around the yard giggling and shrieking, happily.

Fast forward to my doctor’s visit, a week later. “Are you sure you only want one child? You’re not too old for another,” she said.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “I’m sure!”