Photo recall: Leap-day farm fun on a birthday bicycle built for two

There's a one in 2,134,521 chance of a mum and her child sharing February 29 as a birthday.

Being born on February 29 puts you in an exclusive club, but it doesn't mean you have to miss out on anything.

She was the best birthday present imaginable. Little Larree had to have good timing too. Her mum's birthday, like hers, came round only once every four years.

Claudia Aroa and her daughter are both proud members of the February 29 birthday club.

Claudia says her own parents took a while to realise why her birthday was unusual. When the doctors and nurses made a big fuss of the baby, her parents cottoned on. And her daughter, Larree, was born on the leap day her mum turned 24.

Larree wasn't due that day in 1964, but expectant Claudia had a hunch something unusual was in the works. "She was due three days earlier, or later," Claudia says. "But the night before, I just knew it was going to be the next day."

They're a one-in-a-million pair. More accurately, there's a one in 2,134,521 chance of a mum and her child sharing February 29 as a birthday.

In the leap year of 1992, when the Herald visited their Matamata farm for this photo, the Aroas were preparing for a quadrennial joint birthday party.

The joint party is a tradition Claudia and Larree have upheld every leap year, even when Larree was living overseas. Larree flew over from Brisbane as she approached her 28th birthday (or her seventh, if you must be pedantic). The bike is gone, as are Larree's braces, but Claudia still cycles, and her daughter still smiles when the birthday celebrations start.

Now Larree Lesa, she's since returned to New Zealand and married, after spending eight years in Australia.

A February 29 birthday might conjure up images of tearful kids lamenting the fact they can celebrate only once every four years, but Claudia says otherwise. "I think it's an advantage. I love it."

The mother and daughter don't skip birthdays entirely: three years out of four, they unwrap their presents on February 28.

That will be the case this year, which is not a leap year. And Claudia has another reason to celebrate. She and husband Lyndsay recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

Former Governor-General, Sir David Beattie, was born on the leap day in 1924. Other famous faces with February 29 birthdays include chisel-chinned motivational speaker Tony Robbins (1960), and former NZ Warriors player Clinton Toopi, born in 1980.