Warning: While some may understand and find humor in my evil thoughts, others may think I need to be locked in a white, padded cell. Don’t read if you’re easily offended or highly judgmental. If you have a weak sense of humor, go ahead and clutch your pearls now and read no further.

The first time I had serious fantasies about killing my husband was shortly after the birth of our daughter. We had just brought her home and I was still trying to figure out how breastfeeding and engorgement coincided with her schedule. I’d either have to wake up in the middle of the night to pump or wake up a sleeping baby and force her to nurse.

Eventually, she got used to the middle of the night feedings and would wake up in her own… crying. I swear a mother’s hearing is intensified as soon as she gives birth, because every little coo or breath wakes you from that light sleep (the only kind of sleep you get once you become a mother). However, my husband could still sleep through it all. He didn’t share my worries and have to check that she was still breathing every five minutes or have to get up to feed her or burp her or just stare at her in all of her wonder. No. He slept. Through it all.

For this reason, I seriously considered killing him.

If by chance she cried loud enough to disrupt his perfectly deep slumber, then he had the audacity to “shhh” us. I thought it was common knowledge you never “shhh” a sleep-deprived, breast-engorged, hormone-imbalanced momma bear who is giving every ounce of herself to this new life form. I guess he missed the memo.

And for this reason, I would fantasize about the many different ways I could kill him.

I’d usually apologize the next morning for my evil thoughts, and he would just laugh at me. (Which probably didn’t help matters at the time). Naturally when I had our second baby, I thought it would be best for his well being if we didn’t sleep in the same room. Rather than murder my husband, I volunteered to take the couch so I could obsess over the well-being of our newborn son without interrupting my husband or my daughter (yes, we co-sleep. Go ahead and judge me harder, since I’m sure murder has never crossed your perfect mind either).

However, new reasons quickly evolved that my mind considers thoughts-of-murder-worthy. 

To be continued…