My baby girl just turned 14 months over the weekend! She is growing up too fast! I kind of feel like the little girl in this video.
Carly just melts my heart everyday with her sweet smile, giggles, curiosity, crazy hair, gibber gabber, determination to walk (takes my fingers with her little death grip and waddles), loving and spontaneous kisses, pinching at her shirt when she’s tired, desire to share (she is always offering us her toys and food… more cheerios!), handing me the ball instead of throwing it, realizing I can no longer hear her and then find her turning the pages of books, and excitement at patting her belly for “belly button” and then trying to find mine. We are truly blessed to have her as our own.
While she brings us so much joy, some days I just can’t wait for Nick to come home or be done studying because I can only make so many laps around our apartment bent over. The day’s of Carly sitting still have come to an end and changing diapers has become a two person job. She is always on the move so sometimes putting on a new diaper and snapping a onsie are done while she’s crawling out her bedroom door. Oh yeah, she finally crawls normally now. If you missed it, up until 13 1/2 months Carly would get around like a seal– hands on the ground, arms and legs straight, belly on the floor, and then she would pull with her arms and push with her feet.
Ya know how parents are told not to compare their child to others’? Well that was really hard for us to do when people would ask how old she was and then follow up with “Oh I bet she’s walking all around” …”No, not yet.” “Well I bet she’s crawling everywhere.” …”Um, sort of. She won’t get on her knees.” Well we can finally say yes to the crawling and almost to the walking. Give it a week and she’ll be ready to let go of our fingers.
Anyway, on to the food! Since Carly is still limited in food choices due to her lack of quantity of teeth (biting is difficult with only two) sometimes I get stumped when it comes to making a quick healthy breakfast. When we visited my mom back in May she made Carly some oatmeal and she loved it so I’ve been continuing to make her oatmeal almost everyday since.
I had a large bag of frozen blueberries from Costco in my freezer so I was tossing those in before cooking. One day I forgot to put them in so I threw them in at the end and stumbled upon a fabulous mistake! Cooking oatmeal makes it piping hot… too hot for babies, but tossing the frozen blueberries in acts like little ice cubes and cools it down to the perfect warm temperature. Faster breakfast preparation= happier/less crying baby! Anyway, the blueberries also help sweetened the oatmeal decreasing the need for added sugar.
Since I have to check the temperature of the oatmeal before accidentally burning Carly’s mouth, I always take a large nice sample… and then am convinced I should make my own instead of steal from a baby. I decided to turn mine into blueberry coconut oatmeal which made it even more yummy. 
The coconut makes it sweeter and the coconut milk makes it creamy (you can use regular milk too). It’s simple. It’s delicious. It’s nutritious (yay for whole grains, fiber, protein, and iron)! Oh, and I find it very filling. 🙂 Enjoy!
Blueberry Coconut Oatmeal
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup quick oats
- 3/4 cup cold water
- 2 tablespoons sweetened coconut flakes
- Pinch of salt
- 1-2 tablespoons coconut milk, or whole milk, 2%...
- 1/3 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon sliced almonds
Instructions
- Mix oats, water, coconut, and salt in a bowl and microwave for 1- 1 1/2 minutes.
- Mix in 1-2 tablespoons milk to get the desired thickness. Mix in blueberries and sugar. Sprinkle with almonds and extra blueberries, coconut flakes, sugar on top.
Nutrition Facts are calculated using only 1 tablespoon coconut milk. Coconut milk is high in calories and fat (in 1 Tbsp= 30 calories, 3 grams fat) so if you are looking to cut calories replace the coconut milk with a low fat milk. 
Love the idea of adding coconut to oatmeal! And she’s absolutely darling Melanie!
It’s delicious! Thanks Julie!