Epiphany?

Ok so, as I've blogged before, I've been having some issues with a particular girl. Said girl has been a giant pain in my ass for months causing numerous issues with myself and my family. Unfortunately I have to deal with this girl because she is our niece's mother. Now, last Friday I sent her an e-mail telling her what we had bought our niece for Christmas. Keep in mind that we haven't seen our niece at all over the last two months because her mother doesn't like me therefore we weren't "allowed" to be a part of her life. Anywho, back to my story .. I email her and Friday, a one word email saying hey this is what we bought just so no one else buys it for her.

I don't expect a reply and if I do get a reply from her it is usually a bitchy one. She replies and is nice as pie which is completely off character for her given all the shit she's done. She proceeds to ask me how our Thanksgiving was and goes on about how she hopes we had a great day. I'm thinking ummm ... what do you want? Then she asks if we can "work something out" so that we can see our niece. Now, my first response is - what happened? Why is she being so nice? Did someone say something to her?

I confer with my MIL and GrandMIL and ask them if they know anything. It turns out that my niece, as an Open House project for school, had to draw a family portrait in which she drew her parents, herself and my daughter. My niece absolutely ADORES my daughter. We have always taken her since she was born. We've spent a lot of time with her and we've been very close to her and she has been very close to us. Then, all of a sudden, she wasn't allowed to see us anymore not because of anything we had done, but because her mother doesn't like me. We've never done anything bad to our niece. We've never done anything to give this girl a reason for her to deny us from seeing our niece.

Now, she's apologizing left and right for keeping our niece from us. She says that she realized that she was only hurting her own daughter, myself, my wife and my daughter simply because she was allowing her feelings to dictate her actions. Now, I've been telling her that all along. I've been telling her that the only person she was hurting with her immaturity was her daughter. I'm still very skeptical about this sudden change of attitude. I know from past experience that she almost always has an ulterior motive for her actions. I am hoping (with my fingers crossed) that she actually did realize she was hurting her daughter by keeping her from her family who loves and adores her.

I'm not sure how to handle this sudden change of attitude. We've made plans for us to take our niece next weekend. I'm still afraid that she'll do a 180 and change her mind right before we're supposed to pick her up.

Is she genuinely upset with herself for her actions or does she have an ulterior motive? I just don't know how to read this one ....

Advice?????