Just as a little background: I've been a step parent for nearly 5 years. For 4 and a half of those years, my sks have been with my husband and I 5-6 (sometimes 7) days a week. Recently, my husband took their mother to court to try and get her to take more responsibility in the kid's lives (or, at the very least, start paying child support). When the term "child support" was brought up, of course BM decided that right then and there she had had enough of not being with her "babies" (5,6 at the time) and requested full custody. Luckily, where we live there isn't as much BM bias in the courts system and we got split custody (a 3,4-4,3 schedule (yeah I'd never heard of it either)). For the past 6 months we've been living on this crazy structure where one week we pick them up on monday and the next we pick them up on tuesday.

I know that entire paragraph sounds slightly bitter. I'm sorry. Truth be told, I'd probably be happier if we got the child support (which she currently owes us about 900$). I'm not bitter though. Mom, who has for the past 5 years shoved the kids at us any chance she got (sometimes literally), has started to play the game. She hasn't failed to pick up the kids, she hasn't failed to attend school events, and she hasn't failed the kiddos since this took effect. I'm happy as a clam because the kids have stopped asking me why "mommy doesn't love them" (yeah that was a fun couple of months). I may disagree with her on some general things (she doesn't allow swearing, but I prefer to teach the kids the proper times to swear; she doesn't talk about birds and bees while I just answer any questions thrown at me in the simplest way) but holy mother of sweet jeebus! I'm not Mama any more. I am not the auto-go to for literally everything! Its like taking a rock out of my shoe, yeah it wasn't bad, but now that its gone my feet don't hurt as much. I don't have to do doctors appt., I'm not taking them to and from school every day (DH works crazy hours and for a long time I was "stay at home/student"), and most importantly, the weird questions have all but disappeared. No more, "Nikki, I love your cooking. Mommy makes us eat ramen ALL THE TIME." *Dramatic pout*. No more, "Nikki, why can't mommy just do what she says she going to do? She keeps saying we'll spend more time together." *arms cross in little person way*. No more, "Nikki, would it be ok if I pretended you were my real mommy when we go to (school function) together?"

So to state that I'm happy about this change would be an understatement. Who cares if we had to dangle the possibility of paying us child support in front of her nose to get her to step up? She's stepped up! I'm ecstatic. She's never maintained this level of involvement for this long. It makes me so happy. I'm of course ready for when it will inevitably end, because every time she had "tried" in the past, it would stop at a certain point and we'd go back to normal (I.E. not taking the kids to school because she didn't feel like it, kids getting sick so they'd be shipped right back without much notice or reason, there was one instance of child abuse by a relative that made us have them for three months in a row). But for the time being it is great. The kids are happy, and I'm happy. Who knows? Maybe the threat of child support will keep her on her toes until the kiddos are grown ups!?!

So now the question that I'd like help on: I'd like to step back. Let her and my DH do the parenting for a while. Firstly, since my involvement level has been so high, I wonder if this will hurt the kids feelings. I plan on letting them do the PTC's, Doc appts, and pretty much anything that you wouldn't have an acquaintance do with your kids. Will we go to the park? Heck yes! Will we do crafts? Heck yes! Will I spend hours creating and maintaining their schedule? Heck NO! They aren't used to it. We used to have play dates, piano, dance, karate, and a monthly car show. Now its just piano, because that was on a day that we have them regularly now. I mean, really... does that matter? I plan on getting them involved in a few other activities through their school, but does it hurt them that we have pretty much stopped our normal "routine". Not their entire routine, but the vast majority of it. Also, although they haven't mentioned it much, do you think they will feel hurt by "pulling out" of the hard parenting side and upping my fun "step-mom don't give a f***, lets have ice cream!" side. (I miss that side.)

Secondly, how do I deal with it? I've been their "mama" for the past 4.5 years. How do I step back into being a step parent? It isn't easy so far.

TLDR: Mom has stepped up after years of not doing so. How do I step back to let the parents do the parenting and how will this affect the kids?