Although “bundle of joy” is often how I refer to babies when I can’t remember their actual names, it is a charming term of endearment that actually springs from a real-life truth. Babies are bundles of joy – all that cooing and gurgling, those tiny fingers that wrap around yours, those deep eyes that look into your very soul – giving you sudden moments of clarity, making you feel – if only for a moment – that you finally understand the meaning of life.

And then, there are the other “bundles of joy” – the ones that you continue to receive long after your once swaddled sweetheart is starting to run amuck with poster paints, climb aboard a school bus, or pick out her first apartment. When you’re a mom, most days are at least as full of the possibility of joy as anything else.

Take yesterday. It was pretty run-of-the-mill. My daughter had a half day of Kindergarten during which I worked, ran a few errands, and snuck in a voice lesson with my singing coach. The joy arrived unexpectedly after I’d picked my daughter up from the bus. As I stood at our front door, loaded down with shopping bags, purse, backpack, and lunch bag, my daughter bolted into the backyard – leaping about in the dandelions like some intoxicated rabbit. Still intent on lugging all my parcels, Sherpa-style, up the stairs, I stood there watching, but not setting my burdens – literal or figurative – down.

But then … I did. I dropped everything and joined my daughter in her crazy dance. We spent the afternoon chasing butterflies and crickets, making dandelion wishes, doing cartwheels (ok, she did the cartwheels, but I applauded enthusiastically), and building a rather spectacular faerie house. After all that, I set her easel and paints up on the overgrown grass and watched with fascinated pride as she churned out free-wheeling works of art that mirrored our afternoon of luxurious abandon.

From cradle to grave, our lives are touched by bundles of joy – the kind brought by the stork, and the kind brought by the children who came with the stork. Like the lucky mom in the video (an America’s Funniest Videos winning entry that’s made the rounds, but is always worth another look), each of us has infinite chances to feel and share the joy motherhood brings.

What brings you joy?