And true to Joey's caring nature, his arms were around me as he asked:"Mum, are you all right? Sit down. Let me get you a drink." All the while he was making faces at his sister to get her to realise that I needed loving care, not sassiness. And of course, Teresa, the spoilt brat that she was didn't like what he was doing.

"Why are you making faces at me," she demanded, even as her brother desperately tried to get me to sit down. But then, tact was, and probably never will be Teresa's strongest point.

"Look young lady, mum is very upset," Joey retorted.

"So, what's new?"

"You little bi...."

"Darlings, don't!" I cried. Yes, tears welled up in my eyes. While my body was deadly tired, my mind was firing on several engines. Joey could both see and sense the trauma -- and drama -- I was going through. But not the youngest.

"What did you do to make Dad so upset that he did the ultimate?" she demanded.

"Hey give mum a chance," he brother yelled.

I pushed the wad of of pages I was still clutching into Joey's hands.

"Read," I commanded between sobs which came uncontrollably.

When I became a mother with the birth of my first-born, Amelia, I had anticipated the day when I would become a mother-in-law. That's when my daughter marries. Well, that day has come and gone. The wedding dinner is over and we have left the young couple to spend their "first" night as an officially married couple in the hotel suite that came as part of the wedding dinner package. Dad -- well my husband actually although over the years he has become "dad" to everyone, including the dog and the parrot -- and I are savouring the reality that another milestone in life's journey has been reached. We are in-laws even as we have parents in law.

With Amelia gone, there are two more to go, Joey who has completed his NS and waiting to go to university and Teresa, the baby who is mid-way through JC. We will be hosting (or co-hosting as is more likely nowadays with both sets of parents throwing one joint wedding bash) another two wedding dinners within the next 10 years-- at latest. My children are the marrying kind. Their parents never gave the government grieve by overstaying their singlehood.

I was reflecting thus as well as talking about these possibilities aloud even as Dad, oh well Kim Hong to give him his proper name, was driving us home, parking the car, collecting the odds and ends from the boot to take upstairs to the flat. Joey and Teresa were travelling in another car.

"Will you open the door?" Dad asked, even as I had just slipped the key into the key-hole.
"Done!" I chirruped, feeling in the best of mood. I like achieving my goals and seeing my eldest become a Mrs, even though there is something of a shot-gun element to it, is definitely something of an achievement.

"Dad, why so quiet?"

"Dora, it's been a long day! Anyway, what's there for me to say when you are quite happy talking away all the time."

"Oh dear! I didn't give you a chance to speak at the dinner with the cheeng-gay? Sorry lah. But you are so quiet all the time I'm afraid they may think something's wrong."

"Well something's wrong!"

"Excuse me? What do you mean? Are you feeling unwe..."

"Dora, gimme a chance to say something for a change."

He put down the stuff he