(WBBM NEWSRADIO) --There may be some big birthday parties going on Thursday for Leap Day babies who only get their chance to truly shine once every four years.
For their daughter's second official birthday, Melissa Garza of Valparaiso is pulling out all the stops. The family celebrated over the weekend at a water park and with a sleepover.
Tonight they're taking eight-year-old Kennedy out to a "special steak dinner."
"I think right now she thinks it's pretty special," Garza said. She also mentioned that if someone asks her daughter to tell them something about herself, the first thing she talks about is having a Leap Day birthday.
The chance of being born on Leap Day is one in 1,461.
Akalya Pittard of Oak Lawn really wasn't expecting her son Malik to be one of the rare ones, but he arrived at Advocate Christ Medical Center four weeks early.
When we spoke to her, she said she was still a little in shock about her little leapling, who arrived at 6:55 a.m.
"I was just so focused on the contractions that I didn't even realize what the date was."
Scott Stone of Carol Stream is sounding wise beyond his 14 or 56 years.
He pointed out Leap Year babies don't get golden birthdays because they turn 28 on the 29th and they turn 29 on the 28th.
Stone recalled how his kindergarten teacher celebrated his birthday on a non-Leap Year.
"She gave me a birthday celebration-the crown, ice cream sandwich on the 28th and she did it again for me on the 1st (of March) to make me feel special," he said.
At Franciscan Health Crown Point, staff welcomed their first Leap Day baby at 12:41 a.m. with a knitted frog hat and a special onesie.
The health system said Molly Dobin from DeMotte, Indiana isn't the first leaper in her family.
Her late great- grandfather would have been 96 years old today if he had not died last February.
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