sad nursery good byes

We're doing quite a lot of 'last time we'll' at the moment. Today was the boys last day at nursery, and I really was quite sad. I love their nursery, it is small, friendly and the staff that were there when I first put A in 2 1/2 years ago are still there now.

More importantly the boys absolutely love it. Although there have been moments when they weren't sure about the whole nursery concept (L in particular took a long time to settle in and then when he finally did, he had a period of time when he would choose the wrong thing to ease his teething pains...)they now race in, looking for their friends and the toys they want to play with. I've made friends with the other mothers and enjoy the picking up time social activity which doubles up as a time to devise plans for non-nursery days. Yes, we will really miss nursery and the people there.

What we are going to do for childcare in Bosnia is an ongoing worry for me. We did look round a nursery when we were there in September, but there were 2 grumpy middle aged chain smoking women looking after about 30 children. A far cry from the 3 lovely, smiling, fag-free women who look after 8 of them here.

Of course we could think about a nanny or an au-pair but it would take me time to around to get my head around that concept. Also, I like the social element of nursery and would be sad to give up the toddler play element that a nursery provides.

I suspect this will be an issue that runs and runs, and until we actually get to Bosnia and can look closely at what is available I can't actually do anything about. I can't help but hope that we find something that the boys love as much as their current nursery.