Madeleine McCann: twins Sean and Amelie receive birthday presents from Maddie.

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Above: Sean and Amelie, then aged 2, in Portugal in 2007

Sean and Amelie McCann, twin siblings of Maddie, who were just two years and three months when Maddie disappeared, will be five years old tomorrow, February 2nd. They celebrated their birthday with a party at the weekend and according to The Sun:

"MADDIE McCann's sister and brother celebrated their fifth birthday with a party yesterday and a present from their missing sibling.

Parents Kate and Gerry held the special bash for twins Sean and Amelie.

They always buy the pair a gift from their missing sister for Christmas and birthdays."

Do the twins think these presents actually come from Maddie? If so, I wonder what they imagine is the method by which these presents reach them.

In January 2008, according to a report in The Metro, Sean and Amelie were playing a game in which they endeavoured to find "the monster who took Maddie."

"The brother and sister of missing Madeleine McCann cope with their loss by playing a game called 'Find the monster that took Maddie', it was claimed on Sunday.

The game was described by leading world sex crimes expert Ray Wyre after he met parents Kate and Gerry McCann.

Twins Sean and Amelie, two, were helping to give their parents the strength to carry on, he added.

The parents told him they were together recently when the twins rushed into the room shouting.

He added: 'They said they were going to go and find the monster that took Maddie. Then they dashed off to play the game. It's a sad story, but it is healthy that Madeleine remains a real presence in their lives.'"

Do the twins still believe that a "monster," took Maddie? If so, they must also believe that this monster has some very kind and compassionate qualities if he allows Maddie to choose and send them presents. Maybe when they're older, they'll suggest that Kate and Gerry take note of the postmarks on the packages and alert the police.

In November 2009, the twins were ready to fight the man who abducted their sister. "We will fight the man who took our sister Maddie." The Sun

"Gerry told Sky News the twins - just 18 months old when Madeleine went missing in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007 - want to find who took her and punish them.

He said: "They talk about her more than Kate and I do - it's incredible. Now they are saying, 'She's been taken, when we find who took her, we'll fight them'"

The twins must have some crazy mixed-up ideas about this "monster," of a man who took their sister. I have never seen any details of explanation offered to the twins as to why this person took their sister, though if he is a "monster," and they're going to fight him, then he must be an evil man in their eyes, but on the other hand, Maddie gets to send them presents?

Very early on in this sad case, Kate McCann said the twins were coping well because they had never spent much time with Madeleine. Over these past nearly three years, though, they have been encouraged to develop a myth about someone they must hardly have known and will surely not remember. The myth being enhanced regularly by Kate and Gerry seems to be of a sister who is being held by an evil man, but that she is able to communicate in a way by sending gifts and that one day she will be rescued and just take her place, happily, at the dinner table and share Amelie's toys. It's the myth of the golden girl who will return and they will all live happily ever after. We know that Kate and Gerry have consulted a psychologist about how to tell the twins about Maddie, but I cannot imagine a professional psychologist advising parents to maintain this kind of myth.

Maddie was just 21 months old when Sean and Amelie were born in February 2005 and she did not seem to take too readily to having two younger children in the family, demanding of her mother's attention.

"Kate McCann: my struggle to control 'very difficult' Madeleine." Daily Mail 17th September 2007

"The worst thing is that she started to demand lots of attention, especially when I was breast-feeding them.""She would run up and down screaming in the background, shouting for my attention."

"Kate McCann has revealed that she struggled to control Madeleine McCann after the birth of her and Gerry's twins, it was revealed today.Missing Madeleine would run around 'screaming...shouting for my attention', the mother-of-three said.

In an interview given to a Portuguese magazine before she was named as a suspect in the case of the four-year-old's disappearance, Kate also said the first six months of Madeleine's life were "very difficult" and that the girl had suffered from colic.

Speaking about Madeleine's upbringing, Kate, a 39-year-old GP, told Portugal's Flash! magazine: "She cried practically for 18 hours a day. I had to permanently carry her around."

Perhaps the above was the reason for Maddie's being shipped off to her grandmother's house in Glasgow when she was two years old, to spend the twins' first Christmas away from the family in Rothley. Gerry McCann's mother, Eileen McCann, interviewed by the Scottish Daily Record in April 2008:

"She said: "When she was two, Madeleine spent Christmas at my house and it was lovely.

"The next year, the family came up for New Year but on Christmas Day Madeleine called and said she'd got a kitchen from Santa. She was very excited and said 'I'm going to make some tea'."

This Christmas was spent without the blonde-haired, green-eyed girl who fills Eileen's life with such joy."

We are told repeatedly by Kate and Gerry McCann that milestones are important. Surely the twins' first Christmas, when they were a complete family, with their daughter Madeleine and the twins, represented a significant milestone? Surely a time for the whole family to be together to celebrate the occasion? But no, Maddie spent that Christmas with her grandmother. Perhaps the milestones that are important to the McCanns are those on which they can remind us of their continuing need for money to fund their search: first Christmas without Madeleine (which wasn't, of course!) first birthday without Madeleine etc etc.

So, Maddie got shipped off that Christmas and there is a further hint about Maddie's status in the family in a statement by Katherina Gasper, a doctor who went on holiday with the McCanns and their friends in 2005.

"During our stay in Majorca, Dave and his wife, Fiona, accompanied by this daughter Lily, took Madeleine (page 6) with them to spend the day, in order to give Kate and Gerry a bit of rest and time to be with the twins." Missing Madeleine forum

This was September 2005, when the twins would have been 7 months old and if Kate and Gerry needed a bit if rest, rest from what? Maddie's need for attention? Maddie gets taken out for the day by people she could hardly have known, to give her parents time to be with the twins and then, come Christmas, she gets sent to her grandmother's house while her parents spend time with the twins. Did this develop into some kind of pattern with the relatives who visited to support Kate while Gerry was on duty at weekends taking care of Maddie while Kate was with the twins? Was that the relatives role, helping to keep Maddie and the twins apart so that there was no conflict? Not the best way to help siblings to care for each other or to get along and accept one another.

Was Maddie seen to be jealous of her little brother and sister and this was judged to be such a problem that instead of making sure the whole family enjoyed quality time together in order to develop healthy, loving, relationships, Maddie and the twins were seldom together? Kate said it herself: the twins never spent much time with Madeleine.

And then, there amongst the questions that Kate McCann refused to answer when she was made an arguida, is one which raises more questions about Maddie's place in the family:

"When asked whether or not it is true that in England she considered the possibility of handing over Madeleine’s guardianship to a relative, she did not reply."

I would assume that this question had some basis in information obtained by the PJ. It seems to be too specific to have been simply a random idea thrown into the mix of questions.

The McCann twins are in danger of growing up with some kind of euphoric recall about a sister who was never a significant part of their lives. They will no doubt be seeing images all over their home of a smiling blonde girl, their sister who was taken by a "monster," a child they hardly knew and they would not recognise if she were alive and turned up on their doorstep. Maddie exists for Sean and Amelie in those images, in the stories their parents tell them, in the games they are encouraged to play, in the conversations they hear around them and repeat, and in the totally incongruous presents she is supposedly sending to them. They obviously know that their parents are deeply immersed in this matter and of course, like small children who want to please their parents, they ask about this far-away child, who is long gone from their world and their memories. Maddie is a myth like the monster who took her.