OMAHA, Neb. – The big day was finally here. The Jansen quintuplets – the first quintuplets born in Nebraska – were going to receive the Eucharist for the first time April 30 and they were ready.
For the past several months, 7-year-olds Carter, Elijah, Miranda, Nicholas and Taylor had been practicing for this very day. They had attended religious education classes at St. Robert Bellarmine Church here and learned the importance of the sacrament, talked about it during dinner and even practiced with their father, Jeff, using round tortilla chips.
"The first time we did it I was kind of confused about what to do," Taylor said.
"You put your strong hand on the bottom and then you pick it up and put it in your mouth," added Miranda, describing the way her dad taught her to receive the Eucharist.
Karla Jansen, the children's mother, had found matching outfits for the boys, and made the girls' dresses and veils.
"Sometimes I think, gosh, it would be nice if it were just one, but it's like when they were babies, you just do what you have to do," she told The Catholic Voice, Omaha's archdiocesan newspaper.
That Sunday afternoon was a bit chaotic, but Jeff and Karla Jansen had been through this before with their older daughter, Nicole, almost 14 years ago. It's just much busier this time around, they said.
"I probably got things done much quicker. I didn't have to spend so much time preparing or plan as far ahead," said Karla Jansen, who began looking for clothing sales in February.
The children got dressed in the family's living room.
"These are kinda hard to put on," said Taylor as she struggled to pull up her white tights.
Nicholas sat on the floor, taking off his white athletic socks and putting on black ones. Carter tied the laces of his black patent-leather shoes.
After getting ready herself, Karla Jansen came to help button shirts, tie ties and zip dresses. Soon her husband came in the room to assist Elijah, who had been in the basement playing on the computer.
"My shoes hurt," complained Carter to his mom as she put on Nicholas' tie.
He had on Elijah's shoes and the two switched so that Carter had on the wide-width ones.
"What about my hair?" asked Taylor, after her mom placed the wreath and veil on her head with bobby pins. "I haven't brushed my hair yet!"
Miranda sat quietly on the couch looking at the sparkly applique her mother had sewn onto her dress.
Older sister Nicole emerged from the bathroom just in time to take some group shots of her siblings before it was time to head to the church a few blocks away.
During the Mass, all the Jansens received the Eucharist together from Father Donald Shane, pastor, as a family friend, Father David LaPlante, watched from the altar. Father LaPlante, chaplain at Alegent Health Bergan Mercy Medical Center in Omaha, baptized the quintuplets in 1998 and visits the family every week.
"I was a little teary-eyed in church," Karla Jansen said the next day. "It's like you're just watching your babies take one more step. I started thinking back to when they were babies and their baptism."
"I'm relieved that it's finally over. I feel I can finally breathe again," she said. "At least we've got a long ways until the next big event - their confirmation."
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