Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Papers:

It’s hard enough returning to the routines of school so soon after
Labor Day — the getting the kids up and out before eight in the
morning, the scramble to scramble eggs for that all-important
fortifying breakfast, the two hours of picking out an outfit — but
that’s nothing compared to the annual Invasion of the Park Slope
Body-Snatchers!

You can’t see these evil villains, but they’re there. And they’ve
already snatched dozens of Park Slopers, transforming them from laid
back, convivial summer people into stressed out, pushy, neurotic
PARENTS.

After the first drop-off of the year, Smartmom ran into a friend who
just last week was wearing shorts, reeking of SPF 45 and regaling her
with tales of a family vacation in Tuscany.

On this day, she engaged Smartmom in a long conversation about the
pros and cons of the John Hopkins University Talent Search for gifted
kids and her middle schooler’s SAT scores (since when do middle
schoolers take the SATs?).

The body-snatched person may look normal (whatever that is), but
don’t be fooled. Smartmom waved at a friend in front of Back to the
Land on Seventh Avenue.

“How was your summer?” she asked cheerfully. But her friend spoke
with desperation in her voice: “Do you know when the Department of
Education is releasing last year’s standardized test scores?”

Smartmom saw another friend nursing a chai latte at ConnMuffCo
before pick-up. Last week, she was sitting on her stoop sipping an iced
mocha latte frappuccino macchiato and reading the September Vogue.
Today, she seemed edgy, distracted, a tad tense.

“How was your Labor Day weekend?” Smartmom ventured.

“Fine,” she said, but Smartmom knew her friend had been snatched.

In fact, all that Smartmom’s anxious friend wanted to do was compare
and contrast Upper Carroll and the area’s “hot” public middle school.
The strange thing is: her kid is only in second grade.

At pick-up in the bus backyard of PS 321, a woman, Smartmom barely
knows, recited a list of all the books her third-grader had read over
the summer vacation, which included titles by Lemony Snicket, J.K
Rowling, a smidgen of Dostoyevsky and the first act of “Hamlet.”

It was obvious that this woman had also been snatched and she couldn’t help herself. Nor could any of the others.

Smartmom and the Oh So Feisty One took Sixth Avenue back to the
apartment in an effort to avoid Seventh Avenue, where the snatchers
were obviously lurking in droves.

“Mommy, I want to go to Maggie Moo’s,” OSFO said of her favorite ice
cream parlor. But Smartmom imagined being snatched while ordering
OSFO’s Very Yellow Marshmallow cone. Maybe it was something in the ice
cream.

“No, no, I have some ice cream in the freezer,” she said, rushing
her disappointed daughter to the relative safety of home (could Maggie
Moo’s be in cahoots with the Body Snatchers? Smartmom was not willing
to take that chance.)

Back at the apartment, Hepcat greeted OSFO and Smartmom.

“So how was your first day of school?” he said, looking anxious, his
brow was dotted with sweat. “Shouldn’t you start your homework? It’s
very important that you start your homework the minute you walk in the
door.”

Smartmom and OSFO looked at one another, wondering what had gotten into Hepcat — or is that really Hepcat?

“Then you need to read for 20 minutes. Make that an hour. No maybe two hours and afterwards practice your violin.”

OSFO glared at her Dad. “But I don’t play the violin,” she said.

Hepcat was not himself: “Er, I mean the piano. Practice the piano.”

The irony is that OSFO is nothing if not the Perfect Student. In
fact, she was the only one in the family who was actually looking
forward to the first day of school.

She had her outfit picked out a month ago and two-dozen #2
Ticonderoga pencils sharpened and ready to go. Teen Spirit, by
comparison, avoided thinking of school altogether, despite the thousand
pages of summer reading he needed to get done by opening day.

But with Hepcat apparently body-snatched, Smartmom realized that she
was next. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of
her life, as Bogart would say. The Body Snatchers would get her, too.
And she’d be obsessing about Teen Spirit’s 10th-grade report card, the
PSATs, the SATs, and his college essay. Come to think of it, is he
doing anything to earn social service credits for his college
applications?

Smartmom could even start stressing about OSFO’s middle-school
admissions and whether she was invited to enough birthday parties.

But Smartmom would be back to normal by next summer. Just like
everyone else. Then the family could enjoy blissful days and nights on
the beach in Sag Harbor and on the farm in California without once
thinking about school. They could even talk about books, writing, and
music without a word about homework.

But for now, the Body Snatchers were here to stay, transforming eager moms and dads into hyper, over-determined PARENTS.

Remember: be careful at Maggie Moo’s.