pollitos and baby hueys

When my sister was in nursing school, she had a friend that raised mallards, yes ducks. I am not sure if she always had them or just happened to have them, but we ended up with two.  One male, who stayed with us at our house; and one female, who eventually went to live with my sister.

When they first came to us, they were so little, they swam around in my mother's laundry room sink.  They were so fuzzy and cute, and they were inseparable.  Quickly they grew, and my sister took hers, Ping, to live in her backyard.  Ours cried and cried... so sad to be separated from his sister.  We decided to call him Baby Huey after the cartoon character that never matured though his body seemed to grow.  
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For the past year and a half, or maybe two years, I have been a writing coach ... first for the boot campers and then for writing groups.  I have had more or less success with some of the campers and groups ... it has taught me more about my own writing process than I think I was able to help others.

The most ridiculous thing about this, though, is that I was the coach to these folks who were light years ahead of me in the PhD process.

Perhaps more ridiculous than that, I became so invested in their doing well (read *finishing*) that I have come to think of them as my pollitos even though I am the one following them. 

By rights, I guess I should just be thinking of myself as the baby huey, following along and calling loudly for my parents to come back ... pick me up, take care of me. 

As I write this, I feel very much like that baby huey

... alone with my writing, the rest of the group fledged out.

Honestly, though, I am so proud of their work ... and to have watched them grow as writers, but mostly as colleagues.  To think, I have seen no less than seven of them finish manuscripts/present and defend dissertations.

Looking forward to the celebrating with the first one to have crossed that PhD finish line this week. And to celebrating the other three in the months to come.