By Kara Vanderpool Ward

Not Dalmatians. Which is clearly the first thing you think of, at least if you have ever had kids in your house.  Unfortunately 101 is the number of the week.  It is in fact, the average temperature most of the country is feeling at the moment; it is in fact, the number of things on the to-do list most of us are facing with school just around the corner; and it is actually the average amount of money spent per child on back to school supplies (no joke, I looked it up and everything.)  Let me be clear here….I said supplies.  As in paper, pencils, notebooks, binders, and according to some school lists 24 glue sticks.  This does not include any electronics (seriously, have you priced a scientific calculator lately), sports equipment or the coveted pair of Taylor Swift Keds (in light blue – please and thank you.)  Add all of that in, and the “real” number of back to school per child rivals that of a mortgage payment or better.

If you haven’t started back to school shopping yet, have no fear, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!  We will just need to add one more thing to that 101 number.  It is the number of minutes you will now spend panicking over what you should have done, but haven’t, and if you are a habitual procrastinator like me, won’t until 101 hours before school actually starts.

I am, however,  feeling like a bit of  winner at the moment, because my 10th grader finally got her last Kindergarten shot (somehow one escaped us.)  But we found that out because we were in the doctors office obtaining the mandatory sports physicals!  So now I only have a 100 things left to do.  Both kids also got their teeth cleaned, braces tightened, and hair cut, so now I’m down to 97 things left to do before the bus shows up curb side in less than a month.  However, I did drive roughly 101 miles all over town in one day making this happen, so that pesky little number made yet another appearance.

So, now I’m on to clicking my way through the school list – thank you social shopping, thank you nice delivery man who will drop it all at my front door!  If I were an organized mom, I’d have some back to school tips for you here, but since I’m just a regular mom I got nothing.  Zip, zilch, nada, nothing but a reminder that number 101 is a looming reminder of all things back to school.

The good news is, that whether you are an organized mom or not that first period bell is coming, and most of us will manage to pare that scary number down.  That’s when we will all sit back and revel in the 101 seconds of peace we will allow ourselves before we find another number to fear…..how many days left until holiday shopping starts???