HIMYM!
Did you know that the website is real? :P I'm a fan of Postcard #1. (Also, I don't know why it's connected to FOX when the show's on CBS.)
Now, for the show. That whole "sock!" thing was ridiculously adorable all around. I will never understand it; my favorite part of babies is when they're warm and sleepy with their arms around your neck and their head on your shoulder. Also, baby's laughter is adorable. But I never understood the tiny little clothes thing at all. But hey, apparently it's common? And it was also cute, with Lily's repeated "sock!" as an argument, and then Robin stealing it, and Barney's little thing. I have to say, one of my favorite Barney moments EVER is when he's yelling at James for getting married, but as soon as he finds out that they're adopting he just melts. "I'm gonna be an uncle?" So sweet.
And now I really want Marshall and Lily to have a baby and make Barney and Robin babysit. That would be an awesome episode. They'd be all uncomfortable at first, all "I don't know what to do with babies!", and then Barney would start playing with the baby, and then the baby would fall asleep in Robin's lap (because really, sleepy babies are the BEST babies), and awww.
Marshall and Lily are constantly adorable, too, aren't they? I like the way Lily's nightie was patterned in a way that little kids' pajamas frequently are, even if it wasn't cut like that. And I do love this show's over-the-top metaphors, because they don't even try to be subtle, and so you don't have to sit there and think, "Oh, this is so heavy-handed," because it's just fun and supposed to be obvious. But I wonder whatever happened with Marshall's merger? He left in the middle of it, and they never really ended that.
I like the way they tied Barney's sock-thing into his own father issues, because he really does have father issues. I also really like that the two people Ted was "disappointed in" for breaking his ship were the two characters with clearly-defined father issues. I'm not sure if that's what they were going for, the idea that maybe part of the reason Robin and Barney like Ted is because he stands in for their fathers, as it could easily just have been that they're the two most likely to stand in for children of the group, but whatever it was, it worked.
Also, on barneyrobin, someone brought up the symbolism of Barney and Robin breaking the ship in the bottle. They were worried about it, but I think they missed the biggest point about it: it was TED'S ship-in-a-bottle. There are spoilers going around that Ted and Robin will hook up again (or at least Barney will think they are), and while I understand it (they both just took huge risks and fell flat on their faces; of course they'll revert back to what is comfortable and familiar and made them happy), it still bugs me, because we already know that all the will-they-won't-they is ultimately they-won't. But I do think the symbolism is intriguing, and ignore me if I get too overanalytical of a tiny moment for you:
I think the ship doesn't represent Barney and Robin, as people there thought (but people in ship communities are far too likely to assign anything to their ship, whether it gives them hope or despair), but rather Ted and Robin. The bottle symbolizes their friendship and the ship is their relationship (and the feelings that are still there inside their friendship). Robin clearly broke the ship: Barney says it was her, and she doesn't deny it, but says, "Shut up!" which is what you say when you did but were hoping the other person wouldn't give you up. I think this is important, after how upset Barney was that he broke the Bro Code before. I think it's showing that if Robin and Ted DO get back together, they won't last long, and it'll be Robin consciously changing things, permanently ending their relationship, with Barney.
Anyway. Great episode, great show, yay! And I think that's enough analysis-in-complicated-wording for today. :D
Oh, by the way: Sports Night is still awesome, and all the icons are gorgeous, and I'm actually writing fic! Like, really real fic! It will hopefully be up later today, I think? On a related note, the Five Things meme is the best thing to happen to fanfic since the Internet.