I had a Wonder Woman outfit circa 1984. I loved my star spangled pants. I rampaged around our flat battling injustice. Twenty plus years later, I threw a murder mystery dinner party and my female friends and I were 1920’s flapper girls and the blokes transformed in to an approximation of Al Capone in second hand suits, slicked down hair and drawn on moustaches. All looked glam as the Speakeasy opened, but after a few glasses of bootleg booze, beauty spots were smeared, fake cigarettes were snapped and feathers were flying about all over from energetically wafted boas. I’m not sure anyone ever got to the bottom of who the murderer was.

What preoccupies me now is the dressing up for school. It can be tricky. I sound like a moanie (no longer star spangled) pants saying that, I know I do and I’m sorry. But take for example the Big Bug Ball a while ago. My son had to dress as a bug. I had a quick look at the usual online retailers but concluded that I didn’t want to spend £14.99 on a praying mantis costume that he would wear once and pay £3.95 for the privilege of having it delivered to my door.

So, I would be creative Mummy and turn him in to a stag beetle. However, as costume prep started, and my task opened up before me, I became less specific and decided on something from the general beetle family.

I bought a black hoodie from Asda and a black plastic tray, the kind with sections that you can put different types of crudities in and splodge thousand island dip in the centre. I bought fabric glue, but as the white sticky gunk smeared everywhere and the tray kept cracking, I realised that between the pipe cleaners, face paints, clothes and various bits of plastic, I had spent over £25 and the bug he looked like hadn’t yet been documented by David Attenborough or anyone else.

For the latest dressing up, it is ‘international’ theme. He has a flowery shirt and I suggested he go as someone from Hawaii. He simply looked at me confused. I popped to Smythes and looked at Sheriffs’ hat, a gun and holster. But decided I didn’t want him tearing around the playground bang banging at the infants. Eventually I found a T shirt in Asda with ‘Miami’ on it. He’s got a baseball cap that says Boston and I’m thinking a pair of jeans and sneakers and he can be the USA. Maybe if I make a dinner of burger followed by apple pie, he’ll go with star spangled for the day.

When he wore his bug costume he’d said he was proud of it, even though it wasn’t as fancy as some of his friends’ costumes. I was proud of him for thinking and saying that. He is kind, thoughtful, funny and caring and understands that whatever we wear, it’s the person underneath that’s important.