Blame it on the sugar.

Tradition.

Each year, on the girls' birthdays, they get doughnuts for breakfast.

Why?

Tradition.

(and because they would eat them every day of their cotton pickin' life if they could, so knowing how amazingly bad they are for one's health, the very smart mother begins the, yes, you know what's coming....)

Tradition.

And to add to the above-mentioned tradition,

each year we use doughnuts to make the birthday 'number'.

(it's a 9.)

But something happened this year.

Something that wasn't part of the Tradition.

Instead of just trying on her new birthday clothes...

she had to try on a new persona.

I blame it on the sugar.

But not the Tradition.