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Normally I
celebrate them, but not with this much
flair. It is a monumental birthday."
Stout is one of
about 4 million people worldwide who are
celebrating leap day birthdays, according to
The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies.
The group'sWeb site estimates that about
200,000 are celebrating today in the United
States, but firm statistics are hard to come
by.
The U.S.
Census doesn't track or report leap-day
births. The Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta tracks births, but doesn't aggregate
them. The CDC says that 11,645 leap-day
babies were born in 2000, when leap day fell
on a Tuesday; and 7,212 were born in 2004,
on a Sunday.
According to
The Honor Society, there's a 1 in 1,461
chance of being born on leap day, the day
added to the calendar every four years to
keep the calendar in proper alignment with
the Earth's orbit.
Stout
is theming her party around the era when she
was actually 10 -- that would be 1978 --
with
games
and goodie bags filled with nostalgic candy
such as bubble-gum cigarettes, bottle caps,
Pop Rocks and Sixlets. As a nod to her more
adult age, she also is tossing in
airline-sized bottles of liquor with Tylenol
and Rolaids -- for the day after her big
bash.
Stout said it
took some maturity to get used to her
unusual birthday. As a kid, people would
tease her, saying she was only 2.
"When you're
young, you're getting picked on, and it does
bother you, but as you get older it gets
fun, and you can play it," said Stout. "I
once tried to get into the movies at the
under-5 price and showed my license and
said, 'Really, I'm only 5.' "
It didn't
work, she said.
If it had,
Justin Andrews wouldn't be able to get his
driving permit, since he is technically
turning only 4 this year, not 16 like the
rest of his non-leaper peers.
Andrews, of
Newark, said that as a child it was weird
not having a specific day to assign to his
birthday, but his parents always did a great
job of making him feel OK.
"I feel
special now because of it," Andrews said.
Hugh
McFadden, who recently moved to Warminster,
Pa., after 36 years in Wilmington, likes to
tell barroom jokes about his birthday.
You see,
though McFadden is retired at 76, his
license shows that he is only 19 years old.
"In
eight more years I can drink legally," said
McFadden, who was born in 1932. "But when I
give people that line, they say, 'You've
been
drinking
much longer than that,' " he said.
In his life,
McFadden has met only one person -- a
coworker 40 years ago -- with his exact
birthday. But he never minded having the
unusual birthday.
"Every four
years it was special. It was nice, and I
enjoyed that," said McFadden.
Allison Starr
of Wilmington is 7 going on 28, and she
always liked being the star of her birthday.
"As I got
older, I felt special about it," said Starr.
"It was an excuse to make a bigger deal
about it."
Like many
other leaplings, Starr celebrates her
birthday every year, but she tries to do
something extra special every four years.
This year, she is renting an H2 limo and
going with her friends to hit the clubs in
Philadelphia.
"This is my
last one in my 20s, and my friends are all
getting married and having kids. I figured I
better do it now before it's harder to find
babysitters," she said.
Starr
traveled Tuesday to New York City with her
mom to be part of special leap year-themed
episode of "The Martha Stewart Show," which
airs today. The episode is frog-themed (Get
it? Leap year? Ha!), and the entire
audience consisted of leap-year babies, the
oldest being 18 (or 72) and the youngest
turning 3 (or 12).
"When I
was first
walking
up, I thought, 'I don't feel that special
anymore,' " Starr said. "I talked to other
people, and they felt the same way. It was
really strange but really cool."
"Cool" was
not the thought running through Markesha
Robinson's head when she went into labor on
Feb. 28, 2000.
"I was
shocked. I wasn't due until March 13," said
Robinson, of Wilmington.
But at 12:01
a.m. on Feb. 29, she had a son, Tyrieke
Harry -- another surprise as three previous
ultrasounds indicated she had a girl.
"I thought,
'oh, my goodness, when are we going to
celebrate his birthday,' " Robinson said.
Only 31 other babies were born on that day
in Delaware, joining 11,645 in the United
States, according to the Centers for Disease
Control, which tracks births.
Robinson is
in the March 1 camp, but there is some
debate among leapers on sites such as the
Honor Society of Leap Year Babies. Some
believe it should be the day after Feb. 28,
which is March 1 in non-leap years, but
others want to keep their day in the same
month, celebrating Feb. 28.
Starr's
mother solved the problem in non-leap years
by waking her up at at 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 28
and giving her a hug and a kiss that lasted
into March 1.
Other
problems that arise from having a Feb. 29
birthday include issues with
software
programs that don't recognize it as a birth
date. McFadden said that, in the early days
of the Internet, his birth date often was
rejected and had to be entered manually.
The society
has come up with a patch for software
programs to recognize leap day, and
advocates for the recognition of leap day on
calendars.
On the site,
leapers also discuss the "empty box
syndrome": Their siblings all had birthdays
written in the family calendars, but their
special day was written in the empty box
next to Feb. 28.
It's a
feeling Starr said she could relate to.
"It's so
exciting to actually have a place to write
'My birthday' on the calendar this year,"
she said |
