IT'S NO surprise when my daughter - a school-loving bookworm who harangues me for leaving a tap dripping, thus wrecking our planet single-handedly - announces: "I need a Lisa Simpson outfit for the gala." I love the way children have unwavering confidence in a parent's ability to run up a costume. They must think it happens naturally, this knack of transforming a small human being into a custard-hued cartoon character - much like puberty or acquiring wrinkles and a mini vacuum device to clean out the car. It fills me with horror, actually. I'm still mentally scarred from my sons' phase of demanding all manner of half-this, half-that mythological creatures which were hellish to "run up" as I was never quite sure where one part should end and the other begin. Memories of trying to stitch a darn Minotaur head still bring me out in a sweat.

Lisa should, at least, be easier - not least because my mother is extremely whizzy with her sewing machine. This illustrates the difference between the parent-child and grandparent-child relationship. Parent has cursory rummage around house, declares that we have "nothing suitable" and tries to force daughter to drape a sheet over herself and "be a ghost". Granny, however, spends an entire day scouring Glasgow for fabric and finally locates the correct shade. ("More orangey-red than orangey-orange," daughter had instructed).

Which just leaves hair and accessories. How hard can that be? As daughter's natural hair is too long to be spiked, I unearth a matted wig which we'll sculpt into points. "What with?" daughter asks suspiciously. I show her how to make paste from flour and water. How pleasing is that - making something from a store-cupboard ingredient instead of rushing out to the shops? I like to think that my children will grow resourceful like we were in the olden days.

We plonk the wig on a football, hack at it with scissors and slather on the paste. It is impossible to mould it. Our spikes flop dolefully and the paste and wig-hair have mushed together in vile clumps.

Lisa's dress arrives in the post from Granny, its perfection highlighting my ineptitude. Paste has splattered my arms and set like cement all over the table. The kitchen is trashed. Daughter has flounced off in disgust. You know when you've committed yourself to a project which seemed like genius before you began, but is now clearly destined for failure? You want to give up but your pride won't let you. "We'll finish this later," I bluster, moving onto Lisa's necklace which intensifies my daughter's ill-humour because the Tipp-Ex (again, my inspired idea) won't adhere to the beads. The more we brush on, the more comes off. "Couldn't you wear a different necklace?" I ask.

"Lisa's necklace," daughter states firmly, "is WHITE." Tempers are fraying further because Bart and Homer have dropped out of daughter's posse and defected to a rival high-school musical troupe. Daughter will be the lone Simpson in a terrible wig that's started to smell decidedly off.

She scours the house for substitute hair and finds a grubby old car sponge in the garage. She instructs me to clear up the wig mess, wash the sponge, cut it into spikes and attach it to a yellow hairband. I am then to stay up late painting layer upon layer of Tipp-Ex onto the blasted necklace, cover her shoes with orange felt and set my alarm extra early to allow ample time for body paint application. She's so specific in her demands that I snap to attention.

On gala day everyone rushes around, tweaking her "hair" and dabbing her face with sponges as if she were Angelina on Oscars night. I present her with my knackered old sax. Suddenly, she is Lisa. I'm seized by an urge to be Marge in a towering blue wig with the remains of the body paint slapped all over myself. Wouldn't it be fun to do this, mother and daughter? "Go on!" I plead. "Let me be Marge." Daughter eyes me coolly. "No thank you, Mum," she says.