Being born on Feb. 29 has at least one advantage.
It gives you a conversation starter that’s good for a lifetime.
Because Feb. 29 happens just once every four years, when you turn 60, you can tell people with a wink that you’re really only 15 years old. (Har, har, har ...)
But does that make up for getting just one birthday party every four years?
Or the hassles on the times when exact birthdays matter, like getting a driver’s license, having your first legal drink or signing up for those free birthdays off at work?
Those are some of the questions going through the minds of Lynette and David Rossback of Tacoma, who welcomed their new daughter, Leah, into the world at 8:07 a.m. Wednesday.
“It’s kind of fun now,” Lynette said, “It’s kind of neat she chose her own special day.”
David, looking slightly shell-shocked at the experience of being a new dad, stammered, “It’s unique. The chance of hitting one day in four years is unique.
“I didn’t even realize this year was leap year until somebody mentioned it,” said David, who drives a concrete truck for a living. “We’re still trying to figure out what to do about the birthdays. I think like a weeklong fiesta would cover it.”
About 250 leap-year babies were born in Washington on Wednesday, new members of the demographic sub-set created by the imprecision of the Gregorian calendar. Leap years are inserted into the calendar to make up for the fact that the earth’s annual trip around the sun takes a few hours longer than 365 days.
Every revolution is slightly different, but 2012 is predicted to take 365.249595 days.
By 3 p.m. Wednesday, moms at the birth center at Tacoma General Hospital had churned out four leap-year-babies, with six more in the on-deck position and expected to give birth before midnight.
That would mean a total of 10, which is slightly above Tacoma General’s daily average of eight, said Tricia Sharp, nurse-manager on the newborn floor.
“The number goes up and down slightly,” she said. “It varies with atmospheric pressure and the full moon.”
One in 1,461 people are born on Leap Day, with about 200,000 across America and 4 million worldwide.
Much rarer than your run-of-the-mill leap-year-babies are Wayne Fanshier and his son Erik, both of whom were born on Feb. 29, separated by 28 years.
Fanshier, the vice president of finance at Pierce Transit, turned 60 on Wednesday (or 15, depending on how you count it), and Erik turned 32.
What are the odds of that?
“I looked it up once,” the elder Fanshier said. “It was like a hundred and seventy some thousand to one.”
Rob Carson: 253-597-8693
rob.carson@thenewstribune.com
The Peninsula Gateway contributed to this report.
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