Last summer (wow, almost a year ago now!) I did a lot of daytrips with BSM and FF (and Baby WW, but she hardly counted, except when she cried). Lots of daytrips meant lots of driving, and lots of driving meant lots of requests to listen to music in the car.
I have a very simple rule about the kids listening to anything while I'm around: if it irritates me, don't do it where I can hear it. You want kids' songs or stories that grate on me more than nails on a chalkboard? Put on headphones, or take it to another room.
This is all fine and dandy at home, but for the car, we obviously needed a Plan. I liked my Initial Plan for the car: we only listen to music on my phone that I like. Eventually, though, the boys started asking me to add music to my phone for upcoming car rides.
It turns out that the Boys' Plan (which is still in effect a year later) works very well: I get to screen the requested songs on my own time, and choose whether or not to add the songs to my phone. And I get an idea of what songs the boys are listening to, and I even get exposed to new stuff that I like (along with some stuff that I don't, but I like most of it).
One of the songs the boys taught me blows my mind every time I hear it. The song is called "Guardian of the Walls," ["שומר החומות"] and was written in 1977. It's the chorus that blows my mind:
כן, כן, מי חלם אז בכיתה
כשלמדנו לדקלם על חומותייך ירושלים
הפקדתי שומרים
שיום יגיע ואהיה אחד מהם...
Yes, yes, who dreamed back then in class
When we learned to recite, "On your walls, Jerusalem,
I stationed Guardians" [Isaiah, 62:6]
That the day would come and I would be one of them?
Here's the version of the song that I added to my playlist. For your viewing pleasure, the Border Police also has a nice recording of the song.
