Taking the Leap

Today is February 29th, the day that only comes along 'once in four' (or, if you want to be really anal about it, 97 times in 400; but, you know, who wants to be that much of an, uh, anus?).  It is also (by their own delightful planning and forethought) the 20th wedding anniversary of my blog-friend Suldog and HIS WIFE.  Well, to be perfectly anal precise, it's only their 5th anniversary, but they're celebrating 20 years of connubial bliss. . . you get the idea.  So Happy Anniversary to the blissful couple, and many happy returns of the day! (But, alas, only a quarter of the returns that the rest of us will have of our days. . .) (And the two of you can just be glad that 2000 was that rarest of calendric occurrences, a Leap-Century, or you'd only be celebrating your 4th anniversary. . .)

In my young life, I've had a bit of my own fun with Leap Day, starting from the very beginnings of my life on this earth (Well, OK, starting from roughly nine months after the absolute beginnings of my life on this earth, but our culture marks birthdays, not conception days, which is probably just as well for the hormonally-addled psyches of teenaged boys, and all. . .).  You see, I was born on March 3, in 1956.  And 1956 was a Leap Year, so there was a February 29th that year, and I was born only three scant days later (to be brutally candid, I don't know anything at all about the 'scantiness' of the days, only that they elapsed between February 29th and the day of my actual, you know, birth; but it sounds all high-brow and everything to say 'three scant days', so there you have it. . .)

I often wished, in the days of my youth, that I had made my entry three days earlier, so that February 29th would have been my birthday.  You know, it would have marked me as sort of 'unique' - at least four times more unique than the folks with other 'cool' birthdays, like December 25th, and stuff like that.  (Although, now that I think about it, my dad's birthday was June 17th, and roughly every seven years, on average, his birthday was Father's Day, which is very cool if you're, you know, an actual father and all) (and I don't know how often, on average, any given day between March 22 and April 27 might actually be Easter, but that's got to be even more 'unique' than Leap Day, too, I'm sure; sheesh, this is getting way complicated).

Jen and I always used to say that we wanted to have red-haired, left-handed twins, born on February 29th  (I suppose, if we were really serious about it, we would've abstained from conjugal relations for all except a couple weeks in late May and early June, but we weren't really that committed).  So when she was pregnant for the third time, with a due date in early March of 1988, we got excited.  And in late February, when her belly was suitably round, and delivery was suitably imminent, and she started having 'false labor' contractions, we got even more excited.  February 29th came, and we were on pins and needles all day, hoping against hope that real labor would arrive sufficiently early in the day that delivery could still occur before midnight.  We joked about going for a drive on some back-country gravel roads.  When it got to be late afternoon and still no labor, we briefly considered going out on a bike ride on some back-country gravel roads (OK, it wasn't SERIOUS consideration; but it did come up in conversation) (JOKINGLY!  we were JOKING!).

So then we thought it might be cool for our baby to be born on my birthday, and we could have tandem father-child birthday-observances as a 'Cool Family Tradition'.  But that didn't happen, either.  3M was born two scant days (see above ^ as re 'scantiness') after my birthday, though, so joint celebrations of our birthdays have been fairly common after all, over the years (no, I'm NOT talking about 'celebrating with joints' (much as the young man might wish I were); I mean, we join each other in celebrating our mutual respective two-days-apart birthdays) (in case anyone was inclined to, you know, distort my meaning).  So Happy Birthday, five days hence, to my beloved first-born son (who is really the third-born of my children, but the first son, because he has two older sisters) (Man, everything just requires so much explanation. . .)

In college, I knew a girl who was three days older than me, and she received the appropriate teasing for celebrating her 5th birthday in '76, and all that.  In '77, I think, a group of us gathered at her dorm room door, and at 11:59 on February 28th, commenced with the singing of 'Happy Birthday', being careful to sing enough verses (all of the 'How O-old Are You?' and 'You Live In a Zoo' and 'May the Dear Lord Bless You' ones) that we finished after midnight on March 1st.  So, we figured her birthday came and went in there somewhere. . .