For most people, Feb. 29, which just happens to be this Saturday, is a day on the calendar that pops up every four years, a mathematical requirement due to the fact that the solar year is actually just over 365 days long. But for a special group of people, Feb. 29 provides a once-every-four-years chance to celebrate the anniversary of their birth. Those people are leap-year babies, known colloquially as leaplings or leaplets. There are about four million people in the world who will celebrate their birthday on Saturday. We caught up with four of them.
David Cranor of D.C. was living in Texas leading up to his 21st birthday. He wanted to celebrate with a drink. However, there was a logistical hurdle. His birthday is on Feb. 29, and that year, the calendar went from Feb. 28 to March 1. How was he supposed to know when to have his first legal drink?
The solution? Write a letter to the state for official clarification.
“I asked them what day I would be turning 21,” Cranor remembered. The state’s answer? Feb. 28. “So I took that letter out with me so I could prove it to anyone who said I couldn’t drink.”
When she could have her first legal drink wasn’t as big of a deal for Denise Moldover, a teacher from Sterling, Virginia, but she does remember being the victim of a radio D.J.’s practical joke, set up by her mother, when she was a teenager growing up in Pikesville, near Baltimore.
“Sixteen, that was a big one,” she said. “I wanted to drive and my mom played a joke, getting Johnny Walker, a local D.J., to call me up and say he was from the DMV.”
The D.J. told Moldover that since she was really only four years old, she’d have to wait to drive. Moldover was born in 1972, so she is celebrating her 12th birthday, just like Cranor.
“I argued back with him,” Moldover said. “My mom remembers I got extremely angry with him on the phone.” Luckily, she said, it wasn’t a live radio segment.
Charlcie Steuble, a digital marketing director from Prince Frederick, Maryland, was born on Feb. 29, 1968. She is celebrating her 13th birthday on Saturday.
She recalls having a big party when she turned 16, and also being written about in the local newspaper when she celebrated her fourth birthday as a girl in Abilene, Texas.
“When I turned 16, that was a big deal,” she said. “My mom had a surprise party for me.”
Even though Steuble said she does not have any big plans this year, she does admit that every fourth year, her birthday is a little different.
“Certainly, as you get older, birthdays are less and less significant, but strangely, when you have a ‘real’ birthday, it’s exciting.”
Jacob Stevens was nearly born on the more mundane date of Feb. 28, but he was a little slow emerging, revealing himself to the world at 12:15 a.m. on Feb. 29, 1992. He is celebrating his seventh birthday this Saturday.
While the Leap Year is certainly a cause for celebration, Stevens, a broadcast television technician and camera operator for WUSA9 in the District, said he actually enjoys the off-year birthdays a little more.
“As a kid, I kind of looked forward to off-years compared to actual birthday years,” said Stevens, who grew up in Kensington, Maryland. “My parents couldn’t agree, so I had a birthday on Feb. 28 and March 1.”
Some of the other leaplings agree, that on Leap Years, their birthday does not seem to last as long.
Steuble said on non-Leap Years, she considers Feb. 28 as her birthday, because she wants her birthday celebrated in February. Moldover, however, likes to celebrate on March 1, “since I was not born on the 28th.”
But because of the general disagreement about when to celebrate, most of them get two days of birthday wishes.
“In general, people don’t know when to wish you a happy birthday,” Steuble said. “Some people wish you on the 28th and some on March 1. You get two days of birthdays when you don’t have a birthday, that’s the irony.”
Cranor admits, that as a boy, he wanted to celebrate his birthday as soon as possible, so he opted for Feb. 28. However, he later found out March 1 is known as St. David’s Day, so in honor of his name, he thinks of himself as turning a year older on March 1.
This year, on Feb. 29, his wife is planning a happy hour and then she is taking him to a concert.
He thinks there is a special bond among “leaplets.”
“I think there’s sort of a ‘club,'” he said. “What do they say? That vampires can sense each other? I think leaplet babies can sense each other, so we have a little pack, a little team.”
Cranor said he did have a big party when he celebrated his 10th birthday, as a 40-year-old, and he is already making plans for a “sweet sixteen” party during his 64th year, and perhaps when he is celebrating his 84th year, he’ll try to get some free drinks for his 21st birthday.
Some people who celebrate their birthday on Feb. 29 say they occasionally have difficulty with online forms that don’t show their birthday, but as technology has caught up, they don’t experience too many problems. Some inconveniences did crop up when the leaplets were younger.
“I had some trouble with a library card, and a couple times when computers were new,” Cranor said.
In fact, the special birthday sometimes comes with a sweet celebration.
“Eight years ago I went to a cupcake shop, where they were giving away a dozen cupcakes to anyone born on Feb. 29,” Moldover said. “There were about 10 of us in line, and we spent the time talking about which birthday were celebrating and what we were going to do to celebrate that night.”
The unique birthday seems to make the leaplings feel special. It’s a conversation starter and something to have fun with. For example, Cranor, Steuble and Moldover all have children, and the children have almost all celebrated more birthdays than their parent.
“Really, my kids have the most fun being older than their mom,” Steuble said.
Stevens figured he would be teased by his younger brother by now, but it hasn’t happened, yet.
“But I wouldn’t put it past him,” he said.
For Cranor, he enjoys the little bit of trivia he can introduce into a conversation when the time is right.
“It’s a fun little thing about me,” he said. “I have a friend who was born on a boat, and that’s a unique thing about them. That’s a bit about who they are. It doesn’t really affect my life, but it is a part of my story and it does create a bond with other leaplets.”
