“I think it’s so unique, I love that fact about me now compared to, I think when I was young I was like ‘gosh I’m just weird,’” says Middletown resident and Leap Day baby Brooke Bowman. “Like I can’t even be born on a correct day, like why?”
That is a common sentiment among Leap Day babies Bowman. She will be 28 this year, seven in leap years, and says the date becomes more special to her with time.
But before you can grow to appreciate it, you need to understand it. And even for Leap Day babies like Middletown resident Ellen Green, an admissions coordinator at MOT Charter School, it’s not always clear.
“Why doesn’t it have 30 days? Why does it only have 28? Why does it have 29?” Green asks. “These are things I don’t know.”
Well, here’s how it works:
It takes the earth 365.2422 days to make a full trip around the sun – just .2422 days longer than the typical calendar year. But over the centuries, that extra fraction of a day would add up. Seasons wouldn’t fall in the same months every year, and farmers would have a difficult time growing crops, which could affect food supplies.
So, astronomers and mathematicians added an extra day every four years, except on centennial years not divisible by 400, like the years 1700, 1800, and 1900, and declared the problem solved.
But for the modern day Leap Day baby, their birthday can be an enigma.
Consider Lauren Hawkins-- a stay-at-home mom in Middletown. She will be 32 or eight in leap years this year.
She says as a kid, it was confusing for her to understand why her birthday only came every four years, but now, it’s something people remember her for. And, she sees it as cause for additional celebration when there is no 29th of February.
“Growing up I always felt sad on years when I didn’t have a real birthday, but now I feel like I’m more excited on the years when I don’t have a real birthday because then I just celebrate it for the whole month versus just one day, so I feel like that’s changed as I’ve gotten older.”
“Growing up I always felt sad on years when I didn’t have a real birthday, but now I feel like I’m more excited on the years when I don’t have a real birthday because then I just celebrate it for the whole month versus just one day...”Middletown resident Lauren Hawkins will be eight in leap years this year.
Adalae Gordy hasn’t gotten that far yet. The 6th grader at Gunning Bedford Middle School in Middletown is turning 12, or three in leap years. So, it’s still a bit hard to wrap her head around and worse yet, explain to classmates.
“Some people are like ‘I’m older than you!’ and all this other stuff about them being older than me and I’m only three years old in middle school” Gordy says. “And it gets a little bit annoying sometimes but I don’t really mind it.”
And her mom, Arista Gordy, says 12 years ago, she was adamant to not have her baby on Leap Day.
“She was about three weeks late,” she says. “But they said ‘well if you don’t have her by the end of the month just come in on the 29th and we’ll induce you.’ And I said ‘no I don’t want her born on the 29th.’ They said ‘Don’t worry, it will be after midnight, so it will be March 1.’ But she had other plans.”
She says they ended up not having to induce her after all.
“She just let it roll that morning,” Arista Gordy says.
Delmar native Ashley Chance says others have always made her birthday special. Growing up, she didn’t think much about not being able to celebrate on the actual day.
“I think I remember my cousins maybe making fun of me like ‘haha you don’t have a birthday,’ but it never really bothered me,” Chance says. “And my mom, she’s always made a big deal about birthdays. I’m very grateful to have the parents that I have because they make it an event for us now, even still, as an adult.”
Chance will be 40 this year, or 10 in leap years. But her connection to leap day goes even deeper. She also celebrates another occasion on the already-rare day.
“And then it’s my 12th wedding anniversary, or it’s my third,” she says.
Chance and her husband eloped in 2012 – otherwise she would have to wait another four years for the opportunity. She says she always wanted to get married on her birthday – her father did the same on his birthday on October 13th, which was a Friday the 13th the year he was married.
“We got married, and then I showed up to my birthday party and nobody in my family knew it,” Chance says. “So we were dressed up, I was in a wedding dress I had gotten from a thrift shop and he was in a suit. We showed up and I remember my aunt opening the door and she was like ‘Ashley is all dressed up!’ And I was like ‘Yeah, because I got married!’”
Think that’s a great story? It’s just one of many you can find about Leap Day couples and families, according to the co-founder of the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies.
Raenell Dawn is the “Leap Day Lady.”
“I was born February 29, 1960, so this year, 2024, I will be turning 16, or 64,” Dawn says. “My sweet 16 again.”
Dawn wanted to find others like her and founded a Leap Day birthday club in 1988. In 1997, she came together with Peter Brouwer, founder of the online club Leap Year Baby Honor Society, and they combined their clubs into one.
"It is a day that represents balance and harmony. It’s not connected to a religion, it’s not connected to a government, it’s not a holy day, it’s everyone’s extra day and I encourage everyone to use their extra day wisely and do something good with it.”Raenell Dawn is the co-founder of the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies
Dawn says she’s met couples who were both born on Leap Day, and got married on the day too, mothers with up to three children all born on consecutive Leap Days, and third-generation Leap Day babies, who have a parent and grandparent with Leap Day birthdays too.
Her mission is to advocate for more Leap Day recognition – “leapifying” websites for businesses to validate February 29th as an actual date, getting Leap Day capitalized in the dictionary and solidified in ink on the calendar, and to change the narrative that the extra day is a nuisance or a burden.
“As recent as 2020, parents were asked by the hospital staff, ‘What date do you want me to put on your baby’s birth certificate, the 28th or the 1st? You don’t want your baby growing up without a birthday do you?’” Dawn says. “Or the parents would ask the hospital staff, ‘I don’t want my baby to grow up without a birthday, please put February 28 or March 1.’ And they did, and that’s illegal. You don’t change the birth certificate of a human being.”
Dawn says despite her family’s efforts, she still felt left out and was teased by her classmates as a kid. But when she was older, she learned the history of Leap Day, and its importance, a necessary date to keep track of time.
"It is a day that represents balance and harmony,” Dawn says. “It’s not connected to a religion, it’s not connected to a government, it’s not a holy day, it’s everyone’s extra day and I encourage everyone to use their extra day wisely and do something good with it.”
For some, that means celebrating with family, going or doing something new and fun, or hitting all the Leap Day sales on a shopping trip. For Ellen Green at MOT Charter, who is turning 60 next week, it just means going to work.
“I love to come to work on my birthday,” Green says. “The kids always make it special for me on that day.”
