Hey Ho Swashbuckle and Go...

The first evening's entertainment consisted of a large, high ceiling hall with a stage at one end, costumes to one side, entertainers scattered around the floor and a stall selling light sabres and such like. It was very hot, very busy and very loud! As you can probably imagine, this description sounds like exactly the sort of place we should avoid, however Boy Wonder insisted that he needed to try it out. He joined the other children and got dressed up to go on stage and perform a song, Cat Girl thought better of it! Dressed as a Power Ranger, Boy Wonder danced to 'The Music Man.' Before you start visualising this, please note that the Bulgarian 's don't have the first clue about the actions for this song so as a consequence the children were doing a whole host of random movements!
After the mini performance, Boy Wonder got changed and started insisting on needing a lazer pen. His mood was somewhat fraught and the mere suggestion of a no was enough to send him over the edge = first melt down of the holiday.
We walked him through the crowd and luckily the shouting and thrashing was enough for the otherwise very ignorant crowd to get out of his way and let us through. Once outside the crying and shouting continued for some time. Boy Wonder was unable to process anything that I said to him, it was just a case of riding it out.
Now is probably the ideal time to distinguish between a tantrum and a melt down. A tantrum being when a child acts out because something doesn't go their way. They remain in control of their behaviour and can self calm when the time is right, I.e when a compromise has been reached or they have accepted 'no' for an answer. Tantrums can be equally difficult at times but the child learns from them and what their behaviour brings , for example - will the adult give in or won't they?
A meltdown is where a child is overloaded with stimuli I.e noise, crowded environment, to much going on and it cannot be filtered out. They will then explode in anger because they can no longer cope and at this point there is no reasoning or reassurance that can stop this. It then takes a while for the child to regain control and to calm. The child is unlikely to learn from this as it is beyond their control, however coping strategies can be learnt over time to prevent them getting to melt down.
lesson over !!;-)
Once Boy Wonder started to come down we had a chat about busy places, 'I want' demands and his favourite subject (other than death) money. At this point, I had got us completely lost so this diverted him into 'tour guide' mode and he navigated us back to the apartment!
After what seemed to take forever, Boy Wonder fell to sleep. He slept through and was last to wake at 9am.
The new day brought a few hours at the Aqua Park. Apart from the water being cold, it was a fantastic place, lots of slides, pools and a fun splash. After one go on each slide Boy Wonder stated that he had finished with them and after using the mini gym he spent the rest of the time in the splash pool with Cat Girl. At one point he insisted that he should have the 'fishy feet' treatment where fish nibble dry skin from your feet, but we managed to convince him that they bred bacteria and that this really wasn't a good idea. Yuk!
During the day, Boy Wonder had a further two, possibly three of his 'cold' episodes. The middle one was very slight with a quick recovery so we thought that maybe Boy Wonder was a bit worried so notified us every time he felt cold. Nanna said that she had seen him staring into space on one occasion and appear unresponsive for a short while when she called him, he then started shivering.
We tried out the arcade area in the evening. It had a few games, a couple of little shops ( where Cat Girl had her hair braided the day before), pool table, air hockey and a nicer bar lounge. Boy Wonder and Super Man played pool whilst Cat Girl thrashed me at air hockey, quite feisty for a little one! We sat and discussed what we will do tomorrow and decided on a boat trip to the local fishing village.
On the way back to the apartment, Boy Wonder asked lots of questions about tomorrow's trip. 'Will I have to fish?' 'Can I buy a rod?' ' Is it just fish there?' After reassuring him that it was a little town who's main industry was fishing ( and tourism) but it wasn't something that we did when we got there, he seemed to get it.
Up bright and early(ish) for our boat trip. Breakfast eaten, toast machine over used. We set off to the jetty to wait for the boat. As the boat came closer it became apparent that there was a joker on board dressed as a pirate. A local man that really enjoys his work, showing us photos of his fishing highlights, displaying his Bruce Lee artwork right across his chest and attempting multi language humour. Boy Wonder responded by singing the swashbuckle song over and over whilst we went on our way.
Nassiber ( the fishing village) was beautiful with a nice harbour and a collection of little trinket shops, small parks and fish restaurants. It wasn't too busy and seemed perfectly set out to break up the mundane shopping experience for Boy Wonder. He became a little fixated on the vast range of weapons available for sale, firstly the sheer ore of them and then the legalities! Cat Girl soon distracted him by involving him in a search for a black and white cat. She is missing Sooty ( her kitten) terribly so much so that we have had tears on two occasions. Boy Wonder went into big brother mode and scoured around until he found her a silver cat on a chain which although not black and white she did love.
Later in the day we walked over to Sunny Beach and stopped at a bar on the sea front. We had to walk past a closed fairground to get there but the draw of a huge water slide at the other end helped us out. Boy Wonder desperately wanted to go on the slide but he was told he must have a drink first. He explained that he just couldn't look at it as he couldn't bear it! He went over with Super Man and got 10 goes for 5lv. It was quite cold but he enjoyed it. The man offered him a further 5 goes for free which he had a couple more goes and came off.
We caught the little train back to the harbour and boarded the boat to go back to the complex. Boy Wonder spoke to Grandad all the way back about the Titanic and how and why it sunk. A very fitting topic. We arrived back and went straight for tea and a few games in the arcade before bed.
An interesting point of today (well to me anyway ) was that Boy Wonder had no 'cold' episodes and equally there was very little water activity.
He seems to be settling into the holiday well, now that he has got his bearings. There is little anxiety, just the occasional tummy ache but that could be down to the change in diet. This is possibly the first holiday where he has settled more or less straight in without too much anxiety and hyperactive / impulsiveness. We are under no illusions with this, it is clearly down to his medication and not any miracle cure or 'growing out of it' possibility. You will hopefully come to understand why we say this when you start to read the going back to school blogs. This is when the anxiety is at full throttle and much needed support is required. But anyway, the holiday continues .......