2010 Mail Merge either skipping first record or skipping multiple records

*sigh*. I know I SHOULD be able to figure this out. I have mail-merged so many times in my life that I should figure this out. But I have two small kids now, and one is crying behind me as I type this, so forgive me...

I am trying to merge an excel spreadsheet into a document with mutiple records/hits on each page (5 to be exact). It's as simple as using only (merge field) {Data 1} and {Next Record}

If I start off with ONLY Data 1, it skips the first called-field entirely, and then the rest of the stuff starts at field two (which has next record Data 1

However if I add Next record to the first field, it ends up skipping one item per page made (The list is always multiples of 5, so if I have 15 items in the list, it's skipping record 6 and record 12)

Here's how it kinda looks:

First Scenario:

Text text text text {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Output:

Text text text text  (No data files to this)
Text text text text A
Text text text text B
Text text text text C
Text text text text D
(new page)
Text text text text E
Text text text text F

Second Scenario:

Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}
Text text text text {Next Record} {Data 1}

Output:

Text text text text A
Text text text text B
Text text text text C
Text text text text D
Text text text text E
(new page)
Text text text text G

I am very frustrated as I have about 1000 items to merge.... And my first thought was to just put bogus data in the first record and use Scenario 1.. But I feel I shouldn't have to.

Thanks in advance for any help.