Three years is a long time in the magazine world, so here at Sunny Days we’re thrilled to have made it to our third birthday in August this year.
What started as a seed of an idea in the mind of a new dad has now grown to be a familiar and loved parenting publication with over 25000 copies distributed in the Newcastle, Hunter, Lake Macquarie and Central Coast regions.
In 1997, Tommy Leung - a guy who had worked with another local streetpress publication, Reverb - saw a gap in the local market. As a new father to Javonte, Tommy knew that local parents were looking for information and interesting stories which spoke to them in the unique voice of our region.
Can we learn to be parents? And if so, who are the teachers and what should they teach? Or, in a world where too much information never seems to be enough, is parenting one place where we need to step away from the books and just ‘do’? This month Jayne Kearney and Chris Howe look at education for mums and dads.
Thursday is crazy day at our house. Thankfully my husband gets himself to work, but I need to ferry three children to their respective educational facilities within a time frame of just half an hour and high-tail it to work myself. That scant thirty minutes needs to include the preschool sign-in, kids’ school drop off, five sets of traffic lights, eight kilometers of busy main road, trying to park and arrive at work on time. Optimistically, I try to fit in grabbing a coffee on the way but, alas, something has to give. While I visualise myself strolling nonchalantly into the office with coffee in one hand and coat elegantly slung over an arm, it seems the reality for this working mother is somewhat different. I’m doing well if we’ve all got our lunches, my son has remembered to bring his gear for soccer practice and I’ve managed to scratch on some mascara while waiting at a red light.
Our family was faced with an increasingly modern dilemma: working too hard and not enough time for our four kids.So instead of just dreaming about the lifestyle we wanted, we decided to do something about it. I quit my high stress job as a television journalist and my husband quit his real estate job, which had him working weekends and all hours of the day and night.
We were tired of rushing through our days, going through the motions, panic stricken about getting kids to school so we wouldn’t be late for work, rushing out of the office to pick them up from care or babysitters on time. Once we got home we would throw together an entirely unappetising dinner if we didn’t have take away, put the kids to bed, only slightly before ourselves, just so we had enough time to recharge and experience our own version of Groundhog Day all over again.
Some things seem like a good idea at three in the morning.
In my pre-baby days, those regrettable-in-the-harsh-light-of-day incidents were the two for one tequila shots or that kebab with the lot. As a new mum I can still be found rubbing my eyes in the wee small hours but this time, instead of the tell-tale foil wrapper and pile of tabouleh, my sleep-deprived brainwave was to start thinking up nursery rhymes for how I was feeling.
Like most things that take place at 3am, much of it was well-forgotten by morning, but what I can remember has morphed into The Newborn Alphabet.
Three years is a long time in the magazine world, so here at Sunny Days we’re thrilled to have made it to our third birthday in August this year.
Thursday is cra
Our family was faced with an increasingly modern dilemma: working too hard and not enough time for our four kids.So instead of just dreaming about the lifestyle we wanted, we decided to do something about it. I quit my high stress job as a television journalist and my husband quit his real estate job, which had him working weekends and all hours of the day and night. 
Some things seem like a good idea at three in the morning.