The cool dad
For Landon Harris, good parenting means keeping calm in a crisis
Landon Harris was in the shower when he heard his wife panicking. He didn’t panic.
The 23-year veteran of Chesterfield Fire and EMS got out of the shower and went to investigate. His 3-year-old daughter was choking on a hard candy. He picked her up and clapped her on the back several times. Out popped the candy.
“I sat her back down and turned around and went right back into the bathroom,” Landon said. “Being a firefighter and paramedic and working around children in need, situations that would stress a lot of parents out are easier to deal with for me.”
That’s the type of story Landon tells when you ask him about fatherhood. His wife tells a slightly different tale.
In April of 2011, Suzanne Harris and her daughter were waiting in the car to leave for a family trip to Baltimore while Landon was inside taking care of one last thing. She and Abigail, now 7 years old, waited. And waited. Suzanne, a self-described type-A personality, got impatient and went to investigate.
She found Landon in the kitchen making a sandwich.
“Landon was very calm, while I was like, ‘I’m ready to go!’” Suzanne said.
The two stories aren’t as different as they may seem. They both point to what the Harris family says is Landon’s greatest strength as a father. He’s calm. He’s level. He doesn’t lose his cool. He makes a sandwich when others are stressed about their schedule.
It’s a trait that has served the Harris family well over the years. It made things a little easier a decade ago when Landon and Suzanne’s fertility specialist was unable to figure out exactly why the couple was having trouble getting pregnant. It made the decision to adopt rather than continue down the fertility treatment road easier. And it has balanced Suzanne over the past seven years as she and Landon have raised their adopted daughter.
“Landon is very even keeled, and I am more high strung,” Suzanne said. “It is definitely a balance. I think that would sum up the way things are for us.”
Abigail says her dad also has a “crazy” side, and it’s clear she means crazy fun. Landon, whose schedule as a firefighter has him on duty one day out of three and off the other two, likes to chase Abigail around the yard and call her pet names like “Creature.” His crowning achievement in his daughter’s eyes—at least, the act that earned him a trophy for being a great dad—was when he bought and brought home a working vintage fire truck.
“For a while it was parked out in our little driveway, and they would go out there and he would give her rides in it and she would help him fix things,” Suzanne said. “It was their thing. I was not allowed out there.”
Landon admits fatherhood can be difficult—Abigail is sometimes a handful, he says, and the family has followed a different path than he and Suzanne once expected. But the experiences they’ve had couldn’t be replaced.
“Having Abigail in our life has been a true blessing,” he said. “She is our child, and we love her to death. It has been incredible.”—Shea Gibbs