Well, this weekend started with a pregnancy test. A negative one.

By Friday, when I was officially 6 days late, I sent my husband to Rexall to both refill my prescription for Tricyclen Lo and to buy a two-pack of pregnancy tests. Yes, the pharmacist realized the irony of the situation (“Well, sir, good luck with whatever results you get here…”) and so did we.

It’s funny, this.

Of late, I had been a little surprised by Isabella’s reluctance to start reading. Both Emily and Josh were reading early – at 4 – and reading like gangbusters. The devoured books and started climbing the Fountas & Pinell reading level ladder with mad speed. Isabella, my baby, showed little signs of even wanting to read. She was happy to have her books read to her, over and over and over and over. And I suppose that since she’s my baby, I happily obliged. The cuddliest of my children, there’s little I enjoy more than crawling into bed with her for a little Fancy Nancy and Jillian Jiggs. She would bring word lists home of sight words, and they just weren’t clicking. And then, sometime around November, not only did they start clicking, but she was plowing through those lists. The first list took her two months to memorize, but then in November, she went through six or seven new lists. By January, she was reading BOOKS. Cover to cover, with little-to-no help. All she wants to do is read now. All day long. She brings me anything that has words on it. Newspapers, magazines, phone bills. She just wants to devour every single word. It took her a while to get there, but once she did. HOO BOY. She can’t be stopped.

You guys. My baby is reading.

My baby no longer needs ME to read to HER.

It’s the end of an era. I have said all along that five is this magic age where our lives suddenly become easier. When we move out of the super tiring parenting stage into a place where we can do things with the kids. We can play games that don’t involve any chutes or any ladders. We can watch movies that made us laugh and don’t make use bleed from our eyeballs. We can – GASP! – travel.

Baby days are over.

And then, on Friday, minutes before I sat in my bathroom and peed on a stick (Okay, fine, I peed on them both) all I could think about was how my life was going to change. Another pregnancy. No more caffeine or sushi or xanax or prevacid or A WAISTLINE. Another round of sore boobs, sleepless nights. DIAPERS. Where was I going to put this baby? When we moved we got rid of everything. Clothing, seven strollers (YES. Seven.), my high chair, my bouncy chairs, my bottles, my sippy cups. I even tossed that little blue bath seat that hasn’t been used since 2005. I thought about how I would be getting drinks for another 6 years; how I’d be playing chutes and ladders and watching Dora the Explorer and

READING TO ANOTHER BABY.

And then I thought

Another baby!

That means cuddles and snuggles and that delicious-smelling newborn stage. First smiles and first rolls and first crawls and first words and first walks. A possible brother for Josh. A chance for Isabella to be a big sister. BABY FEET. READING TO ANOTHER BABY.

Yes. Whatever the outcome. The Martells were going to be okay.