Surrounded by gadgets galore, I stand in the vast baby section of a store surveying the temptations of spending away my retirement. I am awestruck and overwhelmed. There is so much stuff here. How did I ever raise my children without a wipie warmer and an $800 Bugaboo stroller?

I'm in search of a plain old playpen, like the sturdy, no-frills one that allowed me to imprison my own toddlers for a few blessed minutes of peace way back when. But oh, silly me. The past is past. In the decade or so since my youngest used a playpen railing to pull up on fat, wobbly legs, simplicity has been sacrificed to style and brand names. Children, like our cars, must be accessorized.

I end up buying a play yard online. Even then I do not settle for the standard version. The purchase puts me out half a plane ticket to New York. I get the two-panel extensions (for more space), spring for interlocking foam mats (because they're colorful), and buy a couple of extra toys (for good measure).

The play area I create, the size of a respectable walk-in closet in a McMansion, becomes a permanent fixture in my living room, a reminder that there is no age limit when it comes to playing the fool. I should know better, shouldn't I?

This play yard is the latest addition to my baby gear collection, an assortment of things large and small that, two decades ago, I would have never bought. I also own two porta-cribs, an exersaucer, a walk 'n' ride and a monitor, and I'm eyeing a bounce house for the yard. And that's only the big stuff. I refuse to enumerate the items that fit in a toy box.

I joke that I am single-handedly keeping the local moribund economy on life support by buying items for my twin granddaughters. Yet, I never ever did that for my own children. I prided myself on running a tight fiscal ship and railed against the corruption of consumption, the emptiness of owning things. The teenagers still at home consider me a bean counter of the worst sort.

But I don't know what happens to me when it comes to baby stuff. I throw caution to the wind, relax my ancient resistance, shrug off the obvious exploitation by marketers -- and spend good money after bad. What the heck. Let the parents worry about raising conscientious kids.

Yes, I should be ashamed of myself after countless years and speeches about responsibility. But I don't feel an iota of guilt. I stand tall when others -- read: my own children -- accuse me of abandoning my principles. I'm not above bribing little Ava and Caitlyn, of buying their slobbery devotion.

That is one of the joyful indignities of grandparenthood. You lower your standards, you rethink your motives, you allow yourself to give in. Of course these joyful indignities are about more than money. They're about taking pleasure in another's unabashed glee, about rediscovering what was once forgotten.

When Caitlyn kneads the flabbiness of my inner thighs, when Ava burps peas in my face, when the two fight to climb on my belly for a wild, gyrating ride, I don't worry about how I look or when a certain developmental milestone should be reached or even what values must be instilled.

Instead I think: Is it me? Or does the world seem a whole lot brighter with the twins?

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