These two siblings were born on consecutive Leap Years. One thinks it was planned.

MILWAUKEE – On non-Leap years, Leap Day babies are often torn between when they should celebrate their birthday

For Marianne Abrahamson, the date ambiguity is a good excuse to celebrate for longer.  

The soon-to-be 20-year-old — 80 in common years — said she makes her husband celebrate from mid-February through mid-March. 

“I tell him we have to make sure we cover it,” she said, laughing. “We have this running joke. He’s thrilled when it’s Leap Year.” 

Abrahamson, who was born in Milwaukee and moved to Arizona about 12 years ago, will spend the day with her husband and friends at a Leapling Celebration someone is throwing for her at their senior living facility.  

When she was a kid in Milwaukee, the celebrations were double the fun, since her older brother, Bruce, was also born on Feb. 29, four years before her.  

Abrahamson said her brother was delivered via C-section, so when it came time for her to be born, doctors wanted to do it via C-section, as was the practice at the time.  

Because of that, Abrahamson said she thinks it was sort of planned for her to be delivered on Feb. 29, 1940. Both The Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel featured photos of the siblings on their birthday in 1944, and The Journal included photos of them on their next birthday in 1948.

Abrahamson said she and her brother usually celebrated their birthdays together when they were kids. They won't be celebrating in person together this Leap Year, unless her brother is planning a surprise visit. He retired to Central America about 30 years ago.

Abrahamson got married in 1959 and jokingly calls her husband a “dirty old man” for marrying her when she was 5 (19 in common years).

The couple had two boys, in 1965 and 1967, and they teased her when they were older than her — at ages 10 for both.

“They were just thrilled when they were at an age when they were older than mom,” she said. “They thought that was a lot of fun.” 

Being a leapling is not all fun celebrations, especially as our world has become more digital.  

Abrahamson said when the calendar turned to 2000, even after the Y2K panic dissipated, some websites didn’t recognize February 29 and she had to use Feb. 28 for a while.  

A handful of leaplings on the Honor Society of Leap Day Babies Facebook page posted that they’ve had problems with insurance and driver’s license systems not recognizing Feb. 29 as a valid date. 

But at least people tend to not forget her birthday.

She said on her Leap Day birthday she tends to hear from people she knew as a kid, including some she hasn’t heard from in years — it’s an easy birthday to remember, so there’s no excuse for forgetting it.  

A family in Norway holds the Guinness World Record for the most siblings born on Leap Day. Heidi, Olav and Leif-Martin were born to Karin and Henry Henriksen in 1960, 1964 and 1968 respectively. Imagine the odds of that.

Follow Chelsey Lewis on Twitter: @chelseylew and @TravelMJS