CRESTVIEW — TV commercials once challenged viewers to guess which of two women was the youthful-looking mother — who used the advertised skin care product — and which was her daughter.
Crestview native Donna Blocker Proehl can top that. She and her granddaughter, Madyson Jordan, are the same age, although not chronologically.
Proehl, 56, is a Leap Year baby, born Feb. 29, 1960 at Okaloosa Memorial Hospital in Crestview. On Monday, that makes her 14, the same age as Madyson, who had a December birthday.
It’s not the first time this has happened to Proehl. She and Madyson’s mother, Erin Kilpatrick Lewis, once shared an age.
“Madyson said it was really cool, because when her mom, my daughter, turned 8, I turned 8,” Proehl said. “So she turned 14 in December and now I’m turning 14…"
While Proehl takes her birthday — which comes just once every four years — in stride, it can also be a bother, she said.
“It can be really inconvenient,” she said. “At a place I used to work, on your birthday, they would issue you a check for one day’s pay as a birthday bonus. I never got a check. I had to go in and ask for it.
“Then, when I went to Fort Walton to get a copy of my birth certificate, they came back with one for the 28th. I said, ‘No, this isn’t my birthday.’ People don’t even acknowledge it as a day half the time.”
Still, turning 14 when her friends and classmates are in their 50s is fun, said Proehl, a bus driver who daily shuttles students to and from Davidson and Shoal River Middle Schools, Crestview High School and Antioch Elementary School.
“Madyson says I’m too young to be driving a school bus,” Proehl said. “I enjoy it. After 34 years in public safety as a firefighter, law enforcement and an EMT, this is easy.”
Proehl plans to spend her 14th birthday with family and friends at Lulu’s in Destin (owned by Lucy Buffett), which is holding its first Leap Year birthday party.
What would make the party really special?
“If Lucy’s brother (Jimmy Buffett) would come sing for us!” Proehl said.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Leap Year Birthday: Crestview woman, granddaughter are same 'age'