Hot Dog

I think I am a bad mom. But I know without a shadow of a doubt I am definitely the mother of my son.

A few weeks ago Dax’s teacher asked him to fill out a tiny questionnaire about himself for his class. The questions started off with the typical questioner type questions: Where were you born? When is your birthday? How many brothers and/or sisters do you have? He knew all those, (except when he said “cake” for when his birthday was--silly). Then he started in with the really crazy answers. When I asked him what color his hair was he said he would be right back and ran to my mirror. He came back and answered very matter of factly, “silver.” OK, silver it is….60 years from now. When I asked him what his favorite song was he said “Do As I’m Doing” but didn't know any of the words beyond the first line, which is the same as the title.

There were a few more silly ones like that. Then came the answer of all answers....and reason number one that makes me a bad mom. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. I have never asked him this. Ever. I kinda feel like that makes me a bad mom, that I have no idea what my son wants to be when he grows up. I couldn’t wait to see what he said. And guess what he said. He wanted to be a “helper”. Wow! That’s great I thought. "You want to help people! Kinda like how daddy does at work or a policeman or fire fighter, even a teacher" I was thinking. Nope. Not even close. When I asked him “a helper of what?” he says very unwavering, “a helper of making hot dogs.”

Awesome.

If not knowing what my child wants to be when he grows up doesn’t make me a bad mom, then definitely his obsession with hot dogs does.

I love hot dogs. I really do. I have for as long as I can remember. I’ll take them a number of ways. A nice hot dog on a bun with ketchup and onions, a chilidog smothered with chili and cheese, a corn dog, a hot dog cut into bite size pieces dipped in ketchup, macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, Costco hot dogs. I used to even roll a hot dog up in a quesadilla and eat it like a burrito. Boiled, BBQ-ed, microwaved, it doesn’t matter. If you lined every fast food restaurant in the world on a single street I would choose Wienerschnitzel every time. Even when I am pregnant and not supposed to eat hot dogs, I can’t help it every once in awhile. It’s a sick sick addiction.

Apparently my love for all things grinded meat has been passed on to my son because Dax loves hot dogs as much, if not more, than I do. Every morning I ask what he wants for breakfast and he says “ hot dogs”. Trust me, I have never given my kids hot dogs for breakfast, but I’d be lying if I said they haven’t had them two out of three meals a day.

So, if Dax wants to be a “helper of making hot dogs” when he grows up, then by all means I will support him 100%.

And if one day the two of us turn up missing, we just might have packed up and moved to New York to pursue our dream of owning a hot dog cart. After all, it is a 3.5 billion dollar industry.

Oh yes, I’ve researched that, and between Dax and I, we contribute very dearly to that number and the billions of hot dogs consumed by Americans.

National Hot Dog Month, we look forward to seeing you in July. Love Bryn and Dax