Leap year babies celebrate on special day

Leap Year baby Kelly Baker (center) will celebrate her eighth real birthday this year even though she will technically be 32 years old. She is pictured with her daughter, Makayla; her son, Seth; her mother, Sherry Baldy; and her husband, Eric.

Having a day completely devoted to you each year to celebrate life’s journey and the passage of time is something that most people take for granted.
Some people simply let the day pass and don’t realize that having that one special day is a rarity for some people – people like Phil Campbell resident Kelly Baker, for instance.
Baker will celebrate her eighth birthday this year.
She is a fun-loving, bubbly person who wears a constant smile on her face. She laughs and loves to tell stories. You can tell she loves life and the people around her. All these characteristics sound about right for someone celebrating their eighth birthday, right?
Well guess again. These characteristics actually belong to a 32-year-old mother of two.
You might be wondering how this is possible and the answer is quite simple: Baker is one of the rare few known as a Leap Year baby, which is a person whose birthday falls on February 29 – a date that only comes around once every four years.
This year is one of such years and today Baker will actually get to celebrate her birthday on the real date she was born.
“Growing up, we just celebrated my birthday on March 1 and it never really bothered me because that’s just the day I knew we would celebrate,” she said. “Birthdays are a big deal in our family and we always have a lot of fun and my birthday was no different. It was just on a different day.”
Baker’s mother, Sherry Baldy, wasn’t completely convinced at first that having a Leap Year baby was something she wanted for her child.
“Kelly was actually due on March 5 and since it was Leap Year, people kept telling me, ‘Oh, she’s going to be born on February 29,’” Baldy said. “I didn’t want that to happen because I just didn’t think it would be fair to her to grow up without having a ‘real’ birthday each year. I was afraid it would make her unhappy.”
But Baldy had to put aside her fears of having a Leap Year baby because at 5:01 p.m. on February 29, 1980, Baldy gave birth to a bouncing baby girl.
“I made the decision after that to celebrate Kelly’s birthday on March 1 instead of February 28 because she was born after February 28,” Baldy said. “That was just my philosophy.”
Baldy said she worried how her daughter might feel about her non-birthday once she started to get older but luckily Baker was born with the ability to just “go with the flow.”
“I love my birthday because it’s special and I guess God just knew I’d be an extra special person,” Baker said with a laugh. “And all my friends always thought it was cool, so it never was a weird thing for me.”
Baker said the years when she actually got to celebrate her birthday were always special, especially the year she turned 16 (or four depending on how you look at it).
“The year I turned 16 we had a Lion King-themed birthday party because technically I was turning four and that was the big thing for kids,” she said. “We had Lion King everything – plates, cups, napkins, decorations. My friends even got me stuff like bottles and bibs because I was so young.”
Baker’s children, Seth, 11, and Makayla, 9, think their mother’s birthday is pretty cool as well.
“I can’t believe I’m older than my mom,” Makayla said. “That’s just funny.”
This year since her birthday falls on a Wednesday night when Baker and the rest of her family will be attending church, she said they celebrated this past weekend.
“My husband, Eric, planned a surprise party for me at Olive Garden,” Baker said. “We had a great time. And I figure we’ll still probably go out to eat somewhere after church on Wednesday since it is the big day.”
Baker said her stepfather, Tommy, always joked that she would get her license, go on her first date and draw her Social Security in the same year.
“It’s definitely a unique situation to be in,” she said, “but I wouldn’t change it. Being a Leap Year baby is a lot of fun.”