Welcome to “that guy.” It’s always an eye-opening realization when, through the course of a normal day, you become “that guy.”

For me, I became “that guy with a crying baby in church” Saturday evening. It occurred in front of a church full of in-laws where my four-month-old son Dominick started crying and would not stop.

The event was my wife’s brother’s wedding. I was conveniently on kid patrol in the front row, watching dutifully as my wife took her showcase position near the altar as one of the bridesmaids. Nestled in the front row, prime seating section on the groom’s side, I was hoping the whole thing would go off without incident.

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My job was to arrive in church around 6 p.m. and wait up front for services to begin at 7 p.m. My wife joined the rest of the wedding party around 6 p.m., which meant Dominick and I would be without her for more than two hours as she fulfilled bridesmaid’s duties. Honestly, knowing my son Dominick and I would be without the help of mom had me more nervous for this wedding than I was for my own wedding.

Things started great. Dominick was the picture of calm on the way to church. In fact, my little man even handled the church entrance and sudden appearance of 300 guests as if it were nothing. That all changed within five minutes of sitting down when my sister-in-law said, “I think Dominick is wet.”

No problem. I grabbed the diaper bag, headed to a side pew and laid Dominick on my jacket as I prepared to change a wet diaper. Without going into all the gory details, it was soon obvious my son was more than just wet.

Now, we have a problem. I couldn’t find the baby wipes in the diaper bag and Dominick had begun screaming. Calmly, my sister-in-law said she would find something I could use to clean Dominick up with. In a turn of luck, she came back five minutes later with a fresh bag of wipes she was able to take off some helpful stranger. Why the older gentleman (whom I never actually met) had wipes on him in the first place is a mystery, but that is besides the point.

The diaper got changed, my son stopped crying and the only collateral damage was a small stain on my sleeve. I rolled both sleeves up, threw the jacket back on and felt comfortable even that problem was solved.

Things appeared to get better over the next several minutes as Dominick fell asleep in my arms and I was joined in the front row by my mother-in-law and father-in-law during the ceremony’s opening procession.

The Mass progressed wonderfully as everyone looked beautiful, especially my son as he laid asleep for the first 15 minutes. Figuring I was 25 percent of the way home, I finally let myself believe we might come out of this thing without an international incident.

Dominick woke up during the homily due to our proximity to the priest and an extremely effective speaker system. He woke up with a smile, and things seemed to be progressing nicely as I implemented distraction plan No. 1. My son is captivated with mirrors, and I let him play with a little portable one when he woke up. This kept him entertained and quiet for a few minutes but he quickly lost interest right about the time of Communion.

His cries became louder, and I was forced into that all too common of church scenes: Father who picks son up, walks to side of pew and exits church at back as he pretends not to notice everyone looking at him.

The coolest part of the whole experience was stepping outside into a summer breeze, only to see a friend of the family with his baby granddaughter in his hands. We locked eyes for a second and the unspoken bond of “I know exactly what you are going through” was exchanged with a smile and handshake.

The ceremony ended 15 minutes later and Mom was back outside with us, once again uniting our young family of three.

All in all, a little shirt stain, some loud crying and an early exit doesn’t mean the whole thing was bad. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I’m “that guy.”

Stephen Hemelt is city editor of The

Daily Ibeiran. Contact him at

stephen.hemelt@daily-ibeiran.