It is Sunday night and Janet’s kids are back home and wild as all heck. Tom, her ex-husband, just brought Allie, age 9 and Sam, age 6, home late, tired, hungry, and wired. Tom has been less than punctual all summer but now Janet is exasperated because she has to prepare the kids for school on Monday.

Janet: “You only think about yourself. The kids are out of control and they’re not ready for school.”

Tom: “What’s the big deal? We had a good time together, isn’t that what’s really important, bonding and all?

Janet: “Tom, we no longer have the leisure to just have fun. School just started two weeks ago. Don’t you realize Allie and Sam have to wake up early tomorrow?”

Analysis: Janet is correct. School is a big transition that requires a change of schedule for the adults in their lives as well. After all, your children learn best by example — and you and your ex have to provide that example.

Summer is unstructured, while school is structured. Summer is focused on fun, while the school year is an amalgam of learning, self discipline, and play (it is a balancing act). Summer provides few frustrations while school, by its nature, can give both kids and adults much to be frustrated about. Kids have to adapt to new schedules, homework, annoying classmates or demanding teachers.

Learning comes easy for some and hard for others. You want your children to center in on their studies so that they can feel competent and capable. It is up to you and your ex-spouse to provide helpful guidance to help your kids through this transition.

Three Solid Tips:

Anticipation

Anticipate the change from summer to school and shift the schedule accordingly. The kids probably need an earlier bedtime and dinner, less television and computer time and more preparation for the next day.

Jen Schefft may have won the popular reality contest The Bachelor in 2003, but she dumped Andrew Firestone, the bachelor in question, because, she said, she didn’t want to settle on the wrong guy.

Then she was the chooser on the sequel, The Bachelorette, where she stunned the two finalists by saying that she didn’t want to commit to either of them.

Why, she wondered, was she reviled, rather than respected, for not rushing to the altar?

Her response is Better Single Than Sorry: A No-Regrets Guide to Loving Yourself and Never Settling, which reminds women that you’re OK if you’re not in a relationship.

As she points out:

• There have never been more single adult women in the U.S. than now.
• We have to learn to find enjoyment by ourselves and not through someone else.
• The odds are that each of us will be alone for parts of our lives, so we can’t look for eternal happiness in a relationship with a guy.

The message here is: You can be alone and not lonely.

The book does stretch this point like salt water taffy and could be condensed. But hey, publishers like longer books, and there are points worth mentioning.

Schefft talked to women in all stages of relationships. One said she settled for a guy and now is divorced. “At the time, I thought he was the best I could get,” she told Schefft. “As I have gotten more confident and more experienced with age, I realize that I deserve so much more.”

Schefft of course points out the advantages of being single. “It forces you to build more of a network in the world,” she says. “If you think about it in the right way and not as something tragic, you can become a much more interesting person.”

The opening lines of Leslie Lehr’s novel “Wife Goes On” will resonate with many women.

“The truth is, I was afraid to be alone” she writes, tapping into most women’s secret fear. “Then I heard my daughter swear she’d never get married and I realized sticking it out wouldn’t win me Mother of the Year.

“If I wanted my kids to be happy, I would have to show them how. So I tore off those golden shackles — and found out I wasn’t alone. … Everywhere, there are members who have paid their dues, know the secret handshake and are reaping the benefits of real friendship. Welcome to Club Divorce.”

That’s Diane, an MBA hotshot turned PTA Superman, speaking. In Lehr’s frothy romp, the bond of friendship between Diane and three other women creates opportunities for hankies for the tears, a hankering for new careers, and hanky-panky in dating.

Diane’s husband gambled away their assets, proving that even if your hubby is in the insurance business, there is no assurance that marriages last forever. She uses her business moxie to start Pure Romance, a company selling sex toys based on the Tupperware models of your mom’s generation.

Then there is Lana, a luscious former actress who works in a furniture store, and isn’t going to sit around and feel sorry for herself.

Annette is the hard-edged divorce lawyer who has to pay alimony to her ex-husband, who left her for a man and got custody of their daughter. She wants her child back, on her terms.

Finally there is the homecoming queen, Bonnie, who married the football star and finds that her life — saddled with two kids and Buck, a beer-swilling husband — is no fairytale.

Lehr’s characters experience all the dramas and traumas of divorce — dealing with lawyers, pissed-off kids, budgets shrunken to the size of a brownie, relocation, rejection, and, most importantly, rejuvenation.

Life isn’t over after a divorce. It’s a new beginning. But women are worried about dating again, about their ex-husbands dating again, and about the shaky feeling that comes when the divorce process begins.

www.truemomconfessions.com has agreed to swap content with firstwivesworld.com every week. True Mom Confessions provides the questions, and we provide the advice.

True Mom Question:

I don't know the protocol on dating after divorce. I haven't had feelings for soon-to-be ex DH in a long time, so I feel like I'm ready to embark on the dating scene. Do I wait until the divorce is final (at least four more months)? How long before I introduce him to the kids? I am really scared about this situation. Will anybody want to date a single Mom?

First Wives World Answer:

Single moms date all the time, and find love again. It’s called reinvention and renewal and possibility. It all awaits you in the next chapter of your life. Look at Reese Witherspoon, even Angelina Jolie. They were single moms. Now you may think, “I’m not a movie star.” But you are. You have within you something that shines brightly and will be desirable to the right person. Since your divorce is going to be finalized in four months, however, why not wait? Use this time to embark on improving yourself, buying a new outfit for a first date, and becoming the best person you can be. As far as when to introduce someone to the kids, let’s wait until you find someone worthy. While there are no set rules, most experts say you shouldn’t introduce kids to anyone you haven’t dated for at least six months. You want them to have faith in the sturdiness and consistency of love. Life is long. A whole new future awaits you, and your children.

TMQ:

What does a divorced girl need besides a good attorney, a loyal girlfriend and gainful employment? A good laugh.

“Still Hot: The Uncensored Guide to Divorce, Dating, Sex, Spite, and Happily Ever After” by Sue Mittenthal and Linda Reing delivers.

It’s a bubbling summer cobbler about the trials and tribulations of women whose middle-aged husbands leave them for the office cupcakes, dishy Russian bimbos, or hot Tarot card readers.

Sue Mittenthal and Linda Reing met when their children were toddlers and reconnected when their husbands toddled off. Only after they had moved on from their divorces could they look back and see the unexpected comedy in the drama; they decided to share it in this book, along with observations of divorced friends they met along the way.

Here are some observations:

Tell-Tale Signs He’s Leaving

• You see him gazing into the rearview mirrors while pulling up the skin around his eyes.
• Lately he volunteers to stir-fry tofu and bok choy.
• You find men’s moisturizer in the medicine cabinet, next to his Crest whitening strips and his Just For Men hair dye kit.
• He starts futzing with his comb-over and you catch him clicking on classmates.com.

Just Because He Wants a “Do-Over” It’s Not Your Fault

“That’s revisionism. You are no more responsible for his wretched state that you are for his receding hairline. His about-face is a direct result of his fear of death and decrepitude.”

Girlfriends and “Frenemies”

A girlfriend hears about your divorce and “whisks you off to Linens ’n’ Things” for fresh bedding or shepherds you to Victoria’s Secret”; she also doesn’t laugh while you “try on the rhinestone-studded g-string.”

Entering the dating scene after just a few years off the market — let alone decades — can be an intimidating experience. Everyone else seems to have learned to send pictures on their cell phones, to write a quirky ad on Match.com and figure out how to upload flattering photos of themselves.

Nothing makes a woman feel out of the loop like technological advances.

A course might help, but you can probably figure all those things out if you spend some time actually playing with your cell phone and on the Internet.

Things become urgent when you decide that you are ready to date again. One-third of the 85 million baby boomers in North America are single, so it’s just a matter of meeting one.

What you may really need help on are the ins and outs of online dating, to which baby boomers are increasingly turning.

Sign Me Up

While connecting online has become the norm, finding a likeminded friend or date can become frustrating—if you’re fishing in the wrong pond.

Take the time to visit sites before signing up.

If sites feel too juvenile, consider “mature” dating sites, such as Lavalife Prime, which is geared toward men and women who are 40-plus.

Alternatively, narrow the field by joining niche dating sites.

Places like SingleBookLovers.com, for bibliophiles, or ASoundMatch.com, for music enthusiasts, or even singlemummy.com, for single parents, connect individuals through specific tastes or lifestyles.

All About Me

Now, the most difficult, most painstaking process: writing your profile.

Rather than agonizing over personal statements or — worse — selling yourself short, ask a friend to write it. He or she won’t shy away from playing up the positives.

After a divorce or any life changing event, we reevaluate . . .our lives, our relationships, our history. While the process is integral to your sanity, it's often uncharted, uncomfortable territory. But I found a hobby that makes the healing a whole lot happier.

Scrapbooking.

Yep. That Martha-Stewart-esque-photo-cut-and-paste pastime. It's a downright fun way to organize and make sense of the feelings and memories in your head.

Pull out that box of photos in the attic. Get some adhesive (glue stick is fine) and scrapbook paper at any local craft store. Put the photos on the paper and write down on the paper what the photos contain and your thoughts and memories of those points in history. In the process of remembering and writing it down, a miraculous thing begins to happen. You begin to heal your thoughts, your heart, your soul.

It's the combination of the photos and the journaling that does it. Writing alone, does not remind you of all the parts of yourself the way contemplating a photo does. Writing and making art around those photos, even the simplest kind of art, is altogether healing. It's more powerful than any psychiatrist's couch.

And ninety-eight percent of scrapbookers are women. Much like the quilting circles of generations ago, scrapbook "crops" are weekly events where women gather to work on their craft while sharing the ups and downs, sorrows and joys of their daily lives. Just gathering in a community of women regularly makes scrapbooking a strengthening experience. Throw in the actual process of "scrapping," and you have the means to heal your life.

I have a saying, "Scrap strong sistah." It means scrapbook your life fearlessly. Uncover and discover yourself. Reclaim those parts of yourself you forgot. Venture backwards to conquer going forward. And make some really good art in the process.

Scrap strong sistah. Scrap strong.