Ethan has recovered! Turns out that the HMFD is a very mild one - he only had fever for one day, and his rash was "countable" - a handful on his right foot, buttocks and mouth. Before the weekend, they started disappearing. Ewan was spared, thank goodness. Ethan's swimming coach asked if Ethan would turn up for the swimming test. We deliberated for some time. Ethan wasn't confident since he has not been swimming for a week. His bugbear was the segment in which he has to swim 100m in under 4 minutes. During his training, he doesn't always clear this segment. But we decided to go ahead because he has been practising every other day since we came back from Shanghai. (Actually, he had to go for swimming lessons two hours after we arrived back from Shanghai). We were reluctant to let his efforts go to waste. We told Ethan that as long as he has tried his best, the result doesn't matter. In any case, that segment is the first item. If he doesn't make it, he doesn't need to slog through the rest which include treading water, making a float, dives and a 16 lap-swim.
Ethan's swimming coach turned up at the test to encourage his students. He helped Ethan to warm up and gave him last minute instructions for the the 100m swim in T-shirt and pyjamas. By this time, it started raining and it rained throughout the test. There were 15 kids taking the test in this time slot, all lined up from the shortest to the tallest. The oldest is a teenager. Ethan is second from left. The youngest and shortest (to his right) is his course mate and he is only 5 years old! Ethan was the slowest but his coach encouraged him by telling him at the end of the first lap to push on as he was still within the time limit. He made it!
For the rest of the items with no time limits, he was among the slowest to complete and when the test ended, he earned a pep talk from the tester who told him that he has to train harder to be faster, especially if he wants to go for the Gold award which has a more challenging time limit. Well, we are still proud that Ethan passed under such circumstances!
He is nonchalant about the "feat". He wanted to be home ASAP to continue reading his Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban.
