Published: February 22, 2008 03:44 pm            

LIFESTYLE: Local leap year babies get set to celebrate

Karen Champoux chose the right family to be born into. Other leap year babies have to watch the calendar “leap” over their birthdays and wait four years to celebrate on the actual day. The Champoux family, of Niagara Falls, turned out to be big celebrators. When there was a birthday in the family, it didn’t matter so much the day; they celebrated all week long.

“Birthdays are a big deal in our house,” said Mary Champoux, Karen’s mother.

When they were little, it started out with just streamers in the dining room. With every celebration, the events got bigger.

The kids get to pick what they want for dinner — for Champoux, it was always Chiavetta’s chicken.

One year, when Karen was crazy for dalmatians, her mother decorated the whole dining room with giant black and white spots.

Thus, Karen Champoux, born Feb. 29, 1988, never minded only celebrating her real birthday once every four years.

“It made me feel special,” she said.

She should have felt special. Leap year birthdays are rare. They occur on the extra day — Feb. 29 — built into every fourth year.

The day is placed there to make the calendar year synchronize with the solar year, or the time it takes the Earth to complete its orbit around the sun, according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

According to Infoplease.com, chances are 1-in-1,500 that someone is born on leap day.

It therefore was a huge surprise the first time Champoux walked into her high school homeroom at Niagara Falls High School, because two other classmates shared her unique birthday.

Jenna Blanchard had never met another leap year baby until she met classmates Champoux and Kayleigh Canada.

“I never met anybody else like that throughout high school,” Blanchard said.

“Our lockers were all in a row,” Canada said.

Each girl had hear own feelings about being born on a day that only comes once every four years.

“It’s cool, but it’s also a pain,” Blanchard said, recalling one non-leap year birthday when she was celebrating Feb. 28. “On my 18th birthday, I went into a Wilson Farms to buy a lottery ticket,” she said. “They wouldn’t let me buy a lottery ticket until March 1.”

By virtue of their last names starting with “B” and “C,” the three leap year “babies” spent the next four years in the same alphabetized homeroom. The three are turning 20 on Friday.

For all, it means jokes about their actual age, which can be tiresome when you’ve heard them so many times. “Every time people start talking about birthdays somebody makes a joke and says, ‘What are you, like, 8?’ ” The girls will be celebrating their fifth literal birthday this week.

Canada is looking forward to celebrating her actual age on her actual birthday. She, for one, will be happy to blow out candles on the actual date she was born.

“I’ll have a day to say, ‘Guess what? It’s my birthday,’ ” she said.

And it really will be.

Contact reporter Michele DeLucaat 693-1000, ext. 157.

        

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