I was supposed to keep track.
I was supposed to tally all the miles I walked with Detective Munch and Mom and Buried, as part of the “KINDMilesMatter” campaign. But I blew it. Rather, my son blew it.
Because kids ruin everything.
Disclosure: I have partnered with Life of Dad and KIND for this promotion.
Full Disclosure: I totally choked.
The point of this campaign is to promote healthy living by keeping track of all the miles my family and I racked up over our two-week #KINDMilesMatter stretch. We were supposed to eat KIND bars to fuel ourselves up, and we were supposed to use the RunKeeper app to measure the distance traversed as we walked, ran, swam, biked, kayaked and zip-lined (I don’t think zip-lining counts, and also I didn’t do any zip-lining). 
Then, for each mile that we traveled together, KIND Snacks is going to donate one box of their bars to a charity of my choice – I chose No Kid Hungry, who are fighting to end child hunger in America by ensuring all children get the healthy food they need, every day. (And if they are anything like Detective Munch, they need a LOT of food. Lately, the dude eats almost as much as he talks!) But now, thanks to my son, all I can do is estimate my miles!
Naturally, I dominated the “eating KIND bars” part, because I love the damn things. Sure, they’re made from nutritious and wholesome ingredients that are fit for the whole family, blah blah blah, but there’s also dark chocolate in them so GIVE THEM ALL TO ME. It helps that I’m lazy and during the workweek I pretty much never eat breakfast if it’s not in bar form. I actually keep a box of KIND bars at my desk because otherwise I wouldn’t eat anything before lunch because I’m terrible. So no, enjoying KIND Snacks was not a problem.
It was the other part of the campaign that I failed. Because I hardly tallied any miles at all.
It’s not that we didn’t exercise; over the course of the two weeks, Mom and Buried and I went to the gym a lot, all three of us went swimming at Grandma’s, and god knows Detective Munch got plenty of ya-yas out just being himself, i.e. running around nonstop. Here’s the thing: when we’re together, I spend most of my time chasing the kid, either as part of a fun afternoon at the park, or as part of a nightmarish scenario in which I’m attempting to prevent my son from destroying your fun afternoon at the park.
I failed because when I was in those situations during the two weeks of the #KINDMilesMatter campaign, I never remembered to turn on my Runkeeper and track all my mileage! As with most things that go wrong in my life, this was mostly my son’s fault.
Look, I exercise. I have to! I drink too much beer to not exercise, and besides, I have a four-year-old with whom I spend a lot of time, and he makes sitting still basically impossible. It also often makes keeping my wits about me basically impossible; he runs me so ragged I’m usually exhausted and I’m lucky if I can remember his name let alone remember to turn on the mileage tracker with which I would surely have DOMINATED this campaign because I seriously can’t feel my legs right now after spending the weekend swimming and running and kayaking and jumping through sprinklers with the kid. We even went boating!
Long story short, over the two weeks of the campaign, I ate a ton of KIND Snacks bars and tracked almost no mileage despite being exhausted from all of our outdoor activity and now there’s a deserving charity out there that doesn’t have KIND Snacks bars, all because MY SON IS THE WORST.
But you already knew that.
