Help! A Harried Mom

I had Joaquin last year, and I was already 30 years old. I had been hoping for a baby since I got married and that was 6 years ago, not for the lack of wanting a baby but because of physical and biological reasons. Needless to say, I feel I am not that energetic and active as I had been a few years ago and keeping up with baby's antics and needs seem to drain my physical strength. But I do enjoy caring for him and I love looking at him, playing and cooing and laughing with him. However, it is in the mornings that I seem to be harried and short-tempered.

I wake up at 6:00 am, Joaquin usually wakes up at 5:00 am, but since my hubby wakes up earlier, he watches the baby while I try to sleep a bit more. Then everybody rushes around to prepare for work (hubby) and school (sister). I don't have a nanny, my mother-in-law babysits Joaquin during the day when I work, and she goes home at 5:30 pm when I arrive from work. When I wake up, I also have to see to it that my hubby has his lunch packed, check on what's for breakfast, pick-up discarded clothes, toys, books and prepare my stuff for work too.

My mother-in-law usually arrives at around 7:30 in the morning. Before she arrives, I have to bath Joaquin, dress him, give him his vitamins, and put him in his crib and put on the Brainy Baby dvd for him to watch. You would probably ask why I am harried with a seemingly simple task... try doing it alone! Hubby and sister leave for work and school before 7:00 am, thus I am left alone with baby. Luckily, we live near where I work, a mere 5 minutes would already take me from home to work.

I had been looking for a house help for two months, but its very difficult nowadays, even here in the province, people tend to be more modern, they want to be salesladies than be a househelper. Joaquin is pretty manageable, he is not whiny, he drink his milk well, he eats well, and he is not fussy, although sometimes he wants to get his way. He is very active though, he keeps on rocking, crawling, banging and pulling anything that he fancies. It's getting difficult to bath him alone because he grasps the sides of the baby basin, he grabs my hair and arms when I am shampooing him, and he throws the rubber ducky I gave him to play with! I don;t know, if younger moms would not be as harried and challenged as I am, but I do think that having a baby is one of the best experiences in life, sweat, tears, laughter, poopoos and all.

Do you have any tips as to how I can be more composed than harried in the morning? Please do share, I really need all the help I can have.