An extra-special birthday

Monday will be a special day for a pair of Wantagh residents who get to celebrate their birthdays, on the actual date they were born, for the first time in four years.

Those born on Feb. 29 are known as leaplings, and Aidan Duffy, a student at Lee Road Elementary School, and Meghan Schlosser, a high school guidance counselor, hold that distinction. Since it’s a leap year, they don’t have to make a choice about which day to celebrate.

“I love it,” said Schlosser, who will be 36 in real years, and 9 in her eyes. “For me, every four years I get to have a really big birthday. It’s a really big deal.”

Aidan, a second-grader, will be turning 8. But for him, it’s only the second time he can celebrate on his actually birthday. “There’s not a lot of people that get their birthday on that day,” he said. Until Monday, Aidan joked, he is still a 1-year-old. “When I’m supposed to be 20, I’m going to be 5.”

Schlosser will be celebrating her first birthday since she moved to Wantagh last summer with her husband and their 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son. The same year she turns 40, Schlosser said, her daughter will turn 10. “We’ll be the same age,” she joked. “I can’t wait for my 40th. I already told my husband I expect a surprise party.”

One dilemma for leaplings has been when to celebrate their birthday in non-leap years. Aidan said that it has typically been on Feb. 28, and if that falls on a weekday, he has a bigger party the weekend after.

J.P. Duffy, Aidan’s father, said that while his son’s birthday would technically be the day after Feb. 28, the family decided they should celebrate during the month he was born. “When you celebrate is irrelevant,” he said. “It’s when you say ‘Happy Birthday’ to your child.”

Schlosser has a similar philosophy. “My thing with that is I was born in the month of February,” she said of her decision to celebrate on Feb. 28 most years. “I don’t associate with March.”

She said that the only time that worked to her disadvantage was when she turned 21, and tried to get into a bar on Feb. 28, but wasn’t allowed in until the next day.

When Schlosser turned 16, she had centerpieces that said “16” on one side and “4” on the other. And, although it is more than two decades away, when she turns 64, she says, she plans to have another “Sweet 16.”