Local leap year baby is...

Leap-day baby Jeniffer Silversmith looks around to see what's going on. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Leslie Wood
Staff Writer

Nicholas Silversmith and Nichole Brown pose with their three-day old daughter, Jeniffer Silversmith, on Monday in Gallup. Jeniffer is a Leap-day baby, born on Feb. 29, and will only have a birthday once every four years, according to the calendar. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

GALLUP — Nicholas Silversmith and Nichole Brown didn’t plan on a leap day birth for their three-day-old daughter Jeniffer.

But when her Feb. 23 due date came and went, they soon learned it was a possibility.

“It kind of just came up,” Brown said. “It all came naturally.”

Brown initially hoped her first daughter would be born on her own birthday — Feb. 20.

“I was planning for my birthday,” she said.

However, Brown went into labor at the Fort Defiance Hospital on Feb. 28 and delivered 9 lb. 12 oz. Jeniffer Mary Silversmith the next day, which happened to be a leap day. Jeniffer was the only leap day baby born at the Arizona hospital.

“I forgot it was a leap year,” Nicholas Silversmith said of his reaction to his daughter’s unusual birth date.

In fact, Silversmith was more in awe of his daughter’s lengthy stature rather than her leap year birthday.

“She going to be our little volleyball player,” he said of Jeniffer who measures 22 inches in length.

A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been added to the end of February and consists of 366 days as opposed to common years that have 365 days.

Leap years are intended to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth’s revolutions around the sun.

Some statistics indicate as many as 4 million people worldwide are born on a leap day, which has prompted Web sites devoted to those who share the irregular birth date.

Both Silversmith and Brown hope their daughter grows to appreciate her leap day birthday. But they have yet to decide when her birthday will be celebrated on years that are not designated as leap years.

“We may alternate between Feb. 28 and March 1,” Silversmith said with a laugh. “We’re still trying to figure that out.”