What should I be doing now? (It's done)

[Coconut]

it was a great trip, so nice to be around family and friends, I love where I live now and will not be moving back, but I sure do miss everyone back home. Eventually I will have good friends here, but for now, it just makes the trips back home (and I have been going about every 2 months) just that much more special.

My son came over my moms house, where I was staying, or we went out and did things a few times, it was great spending time with him. I had a few nights out with friends which was fun, all in all, it was a great week back home.

A few things happened that stood out regarding stbxw after seeing her and some other guy at my sons wrestling meet. My son came over for our Christmas party, and when we all sat down to hand out gifts, there were gifts from my son and stbxw (in other words from her) to my nieces who are 6 and 10yrs old. I didn't know this until my brother who was passing out the gifts read the label, and it kind of caught me off guard. My stbxw was very close to my nieces, but contact between them has been very limited and I'm ok with that because I don't think she is a good role model. So it was just a little off putting that she just sent gifts over without asking, or at least a heads up; had she asked me if that would be ok, I probably would have been fine with it, just caught me off guard.

Then when I got my gift from my son, it was a shirt and a photo plaque of his senior picture, it is obvious that she picked those out. I had almost asked him ahead of time not to give me a gift unless he picked it out on his own, but I decided to let him make that decision on his own, so I didn't say anything. It kind of makes me uncomfortable that she is using him to "do things" for me and my family, I would prefer that she just stay away. I included his name on the gifts I got for my nieces, and I would have preferred not getting a gift from him over giving me something his mom picked out for me.

Then, I had to stop by my sons house to pick up my dog on my way home, and I was dropping my nieces off at their house after I picked up my dog, so I had them in the car. When I got to my sons house, she walked out with him and said something to him at the door, he walked over and said Mom wants to know if she can say hi to the girls, so I looked at her and said that it was fine for her to say hello to them. I don't understand why she would buy gifts for them without mentioning it to me, but then feel like she needed to ask me if she could say hello through my son or why she feels that she should communicate through our son when around each other. We communicate back and forth directly via text when needed, she sends me videos and pictures of things he does when I'm not there, so I don't know why she felt the need to have him ask me if it was ok, instead of just asking me herself. I think she really does think I hate her and think she's the worst person on the face of the earth... Although she is my worst person, I've dropped the hate and have been civil with her and thank her when she sends me stuff about our son.

Heck, I even tried to strike up conversation a few months ago ago, but I stopped temp checking because I'm not interested in reconciling, so no matter what she said it wouldn't do me any good. At this point I'm just trying to stumble my way through figuring out how to get to the point that I can be in the same room without it being uncomfortable (for my sons sake).

But for now, I'm getting used to my new responsibility of taking care of my dog. I've always owned a house since I moved out of my parents house, so I'm used to just being able to let the dogs out in the back yard. But now being in a rental town house without a fence, I have to get into the habit of walking my dog, which isn't a whole lot of fun at 6:30am when it's 20 degrees out, as I found out this morning... But it's so nice having her back with me.