I do everything for my skid. He is 8, but I've been in his life since he just turned 3. I buy all of his clothes, enlist him in activities, stay home with him when he's sick, set up play dates for him, plan his birthday parties, and even up until recently went to his parent teacher interviews... you see Mommy is far to busy with a job..(like I don't have one), and Dadda is always busy working (That is my DH)... but a few years ago I said 'enough is enough'...! Sure I still do some of these things...but not to the extent which I once did. It was getting to the point that some parents thought I was his bio mother and called me by her name ! YUCK! Anyways... I leave it up to his parents for the most part now... I get credit for nothing anyways... not from his parents or from him. Now..I can't say I have the "BEST" relationship like you have said..because I don't.. I no longer go to p/t interviews, and I no longer enroll him in anything extracuricular. His parents can. I'm busy too...I just tend to make time for my kids.... I don't think it ever gets better because in all honesty Mommy will always be Mommy.. it doesn't really matter if she does nothing at all...she's mommy and your not. I'm sure this little girl however holds very dear feelings for you because your relationship is so great, but I think you'll have to learn to live with being 2nd.

Super step mommy, I have been there and I know how you feel. I have been a part of my ss5's life since he was an infant. We have been through a lot of different stages. When he was younger he went through the confused stage where he would call me mommy sometimes, and then other times just want his Dad or ask for his mommy. My ss5 and I have a great relationship. Its not always easy though. BM is a total manipulative wacko, and try's her best to interfere with our relationship. Sometimes it hurts my feelings when he asks for her or wants his father instead, or just doesn't want me to do something with him at the moment. Its hard. Because I love him and treat him like my own, and he is my world. I always have to remind myself that he is only 5 and the things he says and does sometimes, he probably doesn't always understand. I just make sure that he always knows that I love him and do as much as I can with him and for him that I get the chance too. I do a lot for him, from cooking, playing, cleaning up after, helping with homework, taking and picking up from school, homework, putting band-aids on boo boo's, buying clothes and toys - pretty much everything a normal bio parent would do. Yes, it is often a thankless job, with no more credit than a glorified babysitter. But I know that my ss5 loves me, and cares ab me, and that's what matters. I just have to remind myself that I am lucky to just be a part of his life. And the extra special moments when he just stops in the middle of whatever he's doing and says "hayuh i love you", or when he tells me he wants me to pick him up from school and spend time with him instead of his BM, and I have to tell him I can't because momma wont let me, and he gets upset, those times are just re assurance of what I already know in my heart. I know he loves and trusts me. Sadly he tells me one dad that BM's bf punched a hole in the wall of her house and he was scared and " momma didn't call the cops and you supposed to call the cops when people do that stuff and momma didn't call them and, hayuh you call the cops cause momma didn't." He's only 5 and he already understands stuff like that. I know he wont understand everything now, and it wont always be easy, and I'm sure there are going to be many more up and down's throughout the next 13years, but, I am confidant that as long as I do everything I can to let him know how much he means to me and how important, and special he is, and how much I love him, that I will always have a special place in his heart, and I will always be his "hayuh." So yes it does get better, as I'm sure that it will have many more challenges. You just have to take the good with the bad, and make the best of it.