"I think he liked the idea of 'I'm only going to have to give her a gift every four years,' " Jody Rubin said tongue-in-cheek
of her husband.

Without leap day, Ballwin chemist Jyothi Swamy and her son, Harsha, couldn't celebrate their "official" birthdays. Today,
they will turn 10 and 3 respectively. That's in leap years. They're really turning 40 and 12.

Once upon a time, leap years got more respect. Victorian-era balls - dances born out of a tradition of ladies' choice -
were thrown. In a bow to that custom, the Ladies of the Turner Brigade, a group of St. Louis-area Civil War re-enactors,
are throwing a ball here on March 6.

Giant leap for womankind

Legend has it that leap day's ladies choice tradition grew out of a negotiation between St. Patrick and St. Bridget, at
a time when nuns were supposedly allowed to marry. The religious women wanted to take the lead in seeking out
suitors for marriage and wanted permission from St. Patrick to do it.

He eventually agreed to let the nuns propose once every four years. Then St. Bridget proposed to St. Patrick who gently
turned her down with a kiss and a silk gown. So a tradition, mostly lost now, was hatched, said Deborah Hyland, an
instructor in the English department at St. Louis University. (Leap day shouldn't be confused with November's Sadie
Hawkins Day, in which women court men.)

During a leap year, women could ask men to marry them. By tradition, if the women were turned down, the men were
obliged to pay them off with a fee or an article of clothing (gloves, for instance). That folklore became a pretext for
hrowing leap year parties during the Victorian era, Hyland said. In her possession is sheet music to the 1920 song,
"Leap For A Man, Girls, It's Leap Year." Leap year memorabilia is popular with some collectors.)

"I don't think a whole lot of people proposed," said Hyland, who was so captivated by the folklore she began collecting
leap year postcards from the mid-1850s through the 1920s. "I just think it was an excuse to have a different kind of
party."

In a notebook four inches thick, she showed her collection of about 300 cards. The cards, including a handful published
by companies from Australia to New Zealand, are courtly, colorful and cute. Some postcards show men standing while
women proposed - on one knee. A number depicted old biddies giving chase to potential suitors, even burglars. In a
postcard dated 1908, a woman auctions hearts to a throng of men.

Often the women on the cards are the aggressors, the men hapless bachelors. The images reflect the changing gender
roles and clothing of women in the early 20th century, Hyland said.

She added: "The theme of suffrage also comes up in several leap year cards, not surprising, given the leap year theme
of active, strong women."

Hyland's own interest in postcards was piqued a few years ago by her personal circumstance. A friend told Hyland
about the cards, but she also had been dating the same fellow for seven years and he'd yet to propose. She thought
the connection ironic. Then he proposed in September 2003. They will marry in July.

"Having dated so long, I thought the cards were a funny way to give him a little kick in the butt," Hyland added.

Ten in leap years

Sunday there will be extra presents for Jyothi and Harsha Swamy. They were both born on leap days - 29 years apart.
She was born in Bangalore, India; he in Sioux City, Iowa, to Jyothi and her husband.

Growing up, Jyothi was told by an uncle that she was special - because of her birth date and because she shared it with
a prime minister of India. "You have good future," he told her. Further, on the Hindu calendar, her birthday didn't fall
on a leap day. "We always had a birthday," she said.

Later, as a mother to be, she recalled when her obstetrician told her that her first child would arrive around the end of
February or early March. He arrived in an Iowa hospital - on leap day 1992. She felt lucky.

"I always wanted a child," Jyothi said. "God gave me a birthday present. He's a wonderful young man."

For his part, Harsha was pretty oblivious to his unique birth date until he was old enough to figure out the calendar. He
was 5, able to read well enough to see there was no Feb. 29 on the calendar. Where, he said, was his birth date?

"He burst out in tears," she said.

Harsha got over it, even making a class presentation in second grade about leap day.

"I just like it because it makes you feel unique," said Harsha, a sixth grader at Selvidge Middle School who likes math,
reading and playing video games. "I feel lucky because not everybody gets to have a birthday like mine, and I get to
share it with my mom."

Leaping to conclusions

Washington University mathematics professor Stanley Sawyer calculated the odds of someone being born on a leap day
at 1 in 1,461 births.

And the odds of that individual's first child being born on a leap day, too?

"One chance in 2 million," Sawyer said. "It's certainly unusual."


Reporter Lorraine Kee
E-mail: lkee@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8255