I've got the power

I’m in the middle of a power struggle.  With a four year old.  Which actually happens more than you might think.  Unless you’ve had a four year old—then you know about the need for need for choosing your battles.  

Is this one worth fighting?  I need some input from an impartial observer who doesn’t react emotionally to being challenged by a four year old four (or forty) times a day.

Last week I bought a Disney Princess wet wipe container for our bathroom with the special lid that pops up and allows one wipe at a time to be removed that, in theory, eliminates the need for all the wet wipes to dry out each time a person under 28 opens the container and leaves it open.

Fortunately, Eliza (one of the worst offenders of the dry wipes problem) loves my taste in wet wipe containers and is enthralled by the little flip top.

Unfortunately, Eliza decided that the container would make a perfect treasure box for herself.  “It doesn’t even smell like wet wipes inside!” she announced after she emptied it of wipes and loaded it with "treasures."

Fortunately, I know by now that wet wipes can be rehydrated after they are left out of their container.

Unfortunately, I have to assume the role of detective just to find the MIA wet wipes that are suffering from what’s becoming quite the drought.  At first Eliza merely deposited the wipes near the scene of the crime, on the bathroom counter.  Since the initial scolding that ensued, she’s been known to leave them on her bedroom floor, and once she even disposed of the evidence in the trash can.  Which, unfortunately, requires sanitization as well as hydration. 

It's not news to me that Eliza is a hoarder.  A while back I made a batch of homemade pretzels that I left to cool while Mark and I were watching a movie.  (The girls had eaten theirs earlier.)  Eliza, who had already been tucked into bed, snuck out and collected most of the pretzels (in a towel I save for mopping the floor) and hid them under her pillow.  It was only by accident that I discovered them, when I came in to see why she was still awake, and found her arched unnaturally (and unrepentantly) over her pillow.

Is it worth the fight to reclaim the Princess box for its rightful duty, and out of the principle of “Mom's The Boss”?  Or should I suck it up and fork out another $2.50 to replace the Princess box with a thoroughly unexciting non-princessy-or-other-kid-icon wet wipe box?  Now that I know better, I’d pay an extra buck for a blank container.