Oh, Rudy.

Like any adorable toddler, Rudy has a series of phrases and expressions of which her mother is particularly fond and proud. I am not above prompting her to make Grumpy Face for company, and will practically nudge her with my elbow to get her to make the noise she improvised when I asked her what sound her belly button makes (something like a wheezing moan and a creaky door opening). And then there's the call and response.

Me. "Hey Rudy, All RIGHT!"

Rudy: "AWWIGHT! AWWIGHT! AWWIGHT!" [Think Outcast's "Hey Ya."]

Me: "Rudy, say: Hel-loooo."

Rudy: "Hew-wough." [But like Eeyore, resigned to another gloomy day.]

Heather calls these party tricks "Rudy's Greatest Hits." I call her rapid-fire series of facial expressions her Off-Off-Broadway Piece entitled, "Every Emotion." And during a rare relaxing morning, I was able to get some footage of Rudy hamming it up in the mirror, including a stomping sort of dance she performed while squealing her trademark phrase, "Dub-Bah Dee!" (She takes after me as far as these sorts of shenanigans go. There is a VHS home movie of my slap-happy dance to and earnest lip-synching of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana" filmed the summer before sixth grade as evidence.) Anyhow, after Rudy's Dubbah Dee dance, I got this.