The first of many years of playful teasing about a little girl who will only be 4 when she’s supposed to get her driver’s license has come and gone. Obviously, aside from the jokes, a year is 365 days most years, correct? So she’s still aging a year. Every year. It just happens on a different day. Not that I’m happy to know my baby will age quickly along with the rest of us. But along with her birthday buddy, my good friend’s baby Dylan, she will have a very special birthday to make a big deal about. It can be a very big deal every four years! I also know it’s special because she basically was a birthday present to me, since my birthday is March 1st. If not for the leap year, she would have had my birthday. I’m glad she gets to have her own, and very fun one to be able to have small talk about for years to come. Jason had guessed it. He thought she’d be born on Leap Day and he was right. If anyone had told me when we were first married that I’d be blessed with a son first who I’m going to be that mother-in-law with and then have the chance to call a little girl “Clementine” who just HAPPENED to be born with red hair and 10 hours away from my birthday!? Obviously I would have been content with a boy with purple hair born on any date the second time around, but I couldn’t love our mother/daughter story more!!
So yes, I will wish her a happy birthday today and tomorrow and then at our family party for her. She doesn’t need just one day to feel celebrated. Happy 1st Birthday little Clemmie, my forever young, but always changing, growing girl.
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We were on the Medina Gazette front page while I was in the hospital, because I guess babies born on weird days make the news. Or if you’re in labor on Labor Day.
Here is the article from that day. I love that she will get to have a special piece of paper to keep in her baby book for years to come.
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Two babies enter a new world in a leap
Filed by Jennifer Pignolet March 2nd, 2012 in News.
MEDINA — Allison Barnhart and her newborn baby Clementine La Rue have birthdays one day apart, but three out of four years, they may end up celebrating together.
Clementine was one of two babies born at Medina Hospital on Wednesday, which was Leap day. Her mother’s birthday was Thursday.
Allison Barnhart, of Ashland, holds her newborn girl, Clementine La Rue, at Medina Hospital on Thursday. (GAZETTE PHOTO BY JENNIFER PIGNOLET)
“I was about 10 hours away from being a Leap day baby myself,” the 28-year-old mother said.
Clementine, who was born at 1:50 p.m. weighing 9 pounds, 6 ounces, joins 2-year-old brother Miles. Barnhart and her husband, Jason, live in Ashland.
Barnhart said they haven’t decided yet how to celebrate Clementine’s birthday, although they likely would recognize it on Feb. 28 to keep it separate from her March 1 birthday.
New parents Emily and Craig Gavlak, of Seville, said they likely will consider a variety of celebration options for their baby, Stella Katherine, born at 7:32 p.m. on Leap day.
“When she gets older, we’ll let her choose,” Emily Gavlak said.
Her husband suggested a two-day celebration or picking whichever weekend is closest, and every four years “we’ll have to do something special,” he said.
Both babies came early, with Clementine not due for another eight days, and Stella, who was 6 pounds, 12 ounces, in another three.
[picture of Stella]“It caught us a little off guard,” Emily Gavlak said.
Despite her due date, she said friends and family had their fingers crossed it would be earlier.
“Everyone guessed it would be Leap day,” she said. “They were all right.”
-Jennifer Pignolet
Mourning Doves 