The kids are early-age teenagers (roughly 12-16), so we actually still have at least 3 years, more likely 6, before they have to be born.
OK, I just checked IMDB. The kids were 15 and 17 when the couch scenes were filmed. But they look much, much younger and I can see the creators saying they were 12 and 14 to make sure How I Met Your Mother isn’t code for I Knocked Your Mother Up on Our First Date.
That works for me.
Didn’t they have an intervention for Marshall setting up too many websites? What am I saying? Of course they did! They sure do love interventions. 
Fake baby!
I’m sorry - I’ve read this every way I can think of, and wouldn’t the title be less likely to be code for that other phrase, the older the children are?? 
The older the children are, the sooner Ted has to have them. If they’re 15 and 17, the oldest kid has to be born in 2013, giving Ted three years to meet the mother and get her pregnant. From the season 6 finale, we already know that Ted meets the mother at a wedding that takes place sometime in 2012. So if the oldest kid is 17, Ted and the mother have to get cracking on those kids from the very second they meet.
But if the kids are 12 and 14, the creators of the show still have a few years to play with.
I find it rarely funny, the acting is like they are reading cue cards, and Neil Patrick Harris is the least funny person on television.
There. I said it.
True story.
I don’t find it very funny, but I used to think “Friends” was funny ten years ago and it seems like it might have scratched the same itch, back in the day.
I’ve caught a few random moments here and there that seemed amusing, but was inevitably driven away after a few minutes by either Harris’s character’s endless “bro code” rules and the incessant laugh track.
I always took it as what Future Ted was remembering while talking to the kids, but not necessarily how he narrated it.
In other words, you might have had a fun date and hot sex with some girl, and when your mom asks how your weekend went, you might say “I had a good date with this girl.” and remember it in technicolor without saying it.
We’re seeing the technicolor, while Future Ted’s kids are hearing “I had a good date with this girl”.
Except sometimes Ted wasn’t around for the technicolor, is the point. We’re talking about flashception, in which a character has a flashback during Ted’s retelling. Ted couldn’t know what that flashback was.
Watch for Barney’s evolving friendship with Lily.
“Lily is a fiendish mastermind, manipulating everyone so that she gets what she wants. She’s pure evil. You have a good one. Hold on to her.”
I was really disappointed by it. Shows with laugh tracks piss me off, for one thing, and I don’t like NPH’s character either, and that’s coming from someone who likes NPH himself. It just reminds me of pretentiously “edgy” sitcoms from the 90s, and neither the writing nor the acting lives up to the best of those.
On further reflection, I’m reminded of the episode I last watched, and why it was the last. Two of the characters (the main one and his girlfriend/wife/whatever) were buying an apartment and there were scenes along the lines of:
Realtor: .. and this apartment has a view of the river.
Main character: I think we’ll keep looking.
Main character’s narration voice: … is what I should have said.
By the fourth or fifth iteration of “…is what I should have said”, I lost patience. I wouldn’t want to listen to someone in real life telling me a story who kept changing the details, so I ain’t sitting still and watching it.
" . . . and I’m just going to sit back, and watch it happen."
I had a feeling the fanbases might not overlap too much. Same goes for Two and a Half Men. I think it’s awful (I don’t even want to like it) but clearly someone’s watching. A lot of someones.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t overlap. I love HIMYM, Community, The Office, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. 30 Rock seemed funny but I never got into it. Never watched P & R.
The show also has a lot more going on the background than most sitcoms (three-camera or one-camera) – the countdown during “Bad News” and what’s happening on the TV during “The Front Porch.”
“Is that Tiffany?”