Hot dog?

So the warmer temps are here, my windows are thrown open airing out the house, my husband is tuning up the lawn mower, my neighbor is washing his car, I am dragging out patio furniture and my son is begging me to go for a hot dog? For weeks now he has been begging me to go for a hot dog, so for dinner one night I make the poor boy a hot dog, but he is not satisfied he wants to go to the vendor in the park. I am initially upset and defensive, wondering what this hot dog vendors hot dogs have that mine don't, after all the boy only drowns his dog in ketchup regardless of where it is prepared? He struggles with trying to explain to my why it is so important only stating "its just better". It isn't till later one afternoon when my husband also expresses a desire to "go for a hot dog" that it dawns on me. Much like the first pitch at a little league game, or the opening day of the ice cream shoppe after being boarded up all winter a hot dog is that rite-of-passage for my son, that tradition of celebrating spring into summer. For the last few years when the temps would rise we would go for long walks or bike rides in the park and end the day with a hot dog from the vendor. Its not the hot dog he wants but more the time we had just before getting the dog. He wants to continue that tradition! With wakening up from winter I have been so busy that the park has just been pushed aside, and not important, but what the boy could not tell me was that it was important not the hot dog but the time. So this weekend yes we went for a hot dog, and the boy did drown his dog in ketchup, insisting it was the best hot dog he ever had.