Two Children

I think they might be too young to occupy themselves without your active presence and guidance. Maybe see if there are any elementary or middle school girls in your neighborhood who could serve as a mother's helper -- keeping your kids occupied while you study. Since you'll be in the house a younger girl who you wouldn't have to pay a whole lot could work for you. Even someone as young as 8 could play with your children and organize activities (coloring, art projects, read books, sing songs).

This is what my friend recently started doing with her 4-year-old. I don't know if your son is old enough to understand it, but it's worth a try.
Take 2 cups and put 10 marbles in one. Explain that every time you have to tell him to stop fighting, you'll take a marble and put it in the other cup. At the end of the day, before brushing teeth for bed, however many marbles are left, he can have that many _____. M&Ms, skittles, goldfish, whatever you know he'd really want.
He gets one warning "If you don't stop fighting with your sister, I will take a marble" and then you take a marble if he doesn't listen.
Also explain that if you never have to take a marble, then you'll go somewhere, or do something, or buy something. My friend usually goes to Target in the dollar section or the dollar store. If they have extra time, they go to the museum or zoo or whatever the next day.
She said it's working and she's starting to get to the point where she doesn't even have to verbally warn her daughter. Holding up a hand is enough to get her to stop what she's doing.

Good Luck:)

Maybe a Mother's Day Out program. It sounds like he might need a change of senery and to play with someone other than his sister. I don't live in your state, but I bet you can find something and they are normally very inexpensive and would be few a few hours a few times a week. Good Luck

You need to find a Mother's Morning Out program or a babysitter to come to the house a couple times a week. It is unreasonable to expect a 3 and a 1 year old to leave you alone long enough to do anything other than go to the bathroom.

It may also be time to start thinking about TV. You'd be amazed what you can get done in 30 minutes. There are some decent, high-quality DVDs and OnDemand (if you have Comcast) programs. I particularly like the Baby Signing Time/Signing Time series (teaches sign language), Little Einsteins (not Baby Einsteins), and Zaboomafoo. Certainly, your son is old enough for Sesame Street.

Here's a tip someone told me that I have found works really, really well to get my son to be willing to play more independently when I need him to: Twice a day, stop all the other stuff I'm doing and get down on the floor and play with him (here's the hard part) with my UNDIVIDED attention for 30 minutes. If I do that, he's happy the rest of the day to play with my, er, divided attention. :-) Really does make a difference. One of the hardest things about staying at home for me is that because I spend such a quantity of time with my son, sometimes the quality of the time suffers. Got to find that balance. If you spend some good, quality time with them and then carve out (with outside help) some time for you, I think your life will be much improved! :-)

I agree with Michelle M. They're simply too young to be able to be expected to provide a little peace and quiet while you're trying to do your school work. I just couldn't find the time on my own when they were there.

My kids were that age last summer when I was laid off. Even though we could have saved thousands of dollars while I was job seeking, we kept them in day care 3 days/week so I could focus on finding a job and having appropriate time to interview.

If finances allow, I'd look into either having someone come help a few days/week or looking into part-time day care (which I know isn't desirable for everyone). But, at those ages, it's so hard to be both a full-time mother and student, and something has to give.

If the goal is to improve your lives collectively by going to school, put more emphasis on that for the time being and complete it as quickly as possible.

Good luck!

My goodness, they are babies, they cannot be expected to amuse themselves. So they don't watch TV, but can't you put a 2 hour Disney movie in for them to watch?

Or hire someone to come and stay with them for a couple of hours while you maybe go to a library to study. Is that possible?

There's nothing wrong with television if it's used properly. There's many learning DVDs out there. Leap Frog would be great for your 3 year old and the one year old would benefit from Brainy Baby. There are good learning shows on PBS and Sprout Channel. PBS offers Dinosaur Train, Super Why, Word World, and Sid the Science Kid. You can choose specific DVDs at a store for learning and put them on repeat so you can do some homework. You can do homework while the children are napping and do try to nap them at the same time if possible. Write out a schedule of chores and spread them out during the week and schedule in time for school. Now that it's warmer take the kids outside to wear them out before nap time, and when Dad gets home have him take over kid duty since he hasn't seen them all day. Give him specific choes daily to help out as well, and take turns making dinner. Have the 3 year old help out with chores by being your "gopher". You can save steps by having him take something to your room, hand you things, etc. Having regular routines helps the house run much smoother.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

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Enforce a no fighting rule consistently. Never allow your 3 year old to "fight" with his sister. No aggression or fighting allowed. Use discipline. He will stop with a warning once he learns that more than one warning means a consequence will follow. Make sure the consequence matters to him.

Be sure there is an uncluttered activity or two for each of them to play with-not too many toys or they will lose focus and get bored. For 20 minutes at a time, set them up to play separately with little breaks or let them play nicely together, but enforce immediately when they don't. You can do it. My kids are the same age span, I work at home, and fighting has never been allowed.
I would also allow some educational shows for the sake of your own productivity.