For living in the land of malls my kids aren't accustomed to shopping or spending much time in malls. In fact, my oldest loathes it and I bribe him with Pokémon Go when we are both in dire straits. I figured out a way to skip this whole ordeal and we all win in the end. Recently, my oldest was asking about mail and how packages and shipping work. Since we live in The Philippines sending letters and receiving mail is quite foreign. So, one afternoon we skipped the mall, placed an online order and waited for our package to arrive.

This article was so fascinating to me about a young boy who picks out his moms clothes for a week! I read it years ago and it still leads much of my parenting pedagogy. While I am not there yet, I did let my oldest two have full control over their purchase with two guidelines. One, follow a budget and two pick out a piece of clothing. Obviously, we used a local website and since I am a huge fan of Filipina entrepreneurs we chose Mothering Earthlings which was started by a mother of boys like myself. The selections are locally sourced and have many crafted items which of course, I am a sucker for. Of all the items they could have picked they picked out matching shirts with the words "BIG BROTHER". Be still my momma heart.

While our package wasn't delivered to a mailbox, it was like so many packages here in The Philippines by motor bike. As they say, it's more fun in The Philippines. Plus, we didn't have to sit in traffic and go to a mall, I'll call that a win.

*Thanks to Mothering Earthlings for the generous gift card so I could have this teaching opportunity with my kids.