Anna is four. She realized at an early age that her skin is 'brown' and my husband and I are 'tan.' Just as she understood that she was a girl and other creatures are boys. She knew she was adopted. She knew she was Jewish. Today, at four years old, she is still working to put the pieces together. And underneath all my feelings, as much as I suppress it and have never voiced the thought, I wonder if we made the right choice for her.

I know we made the right choice. Anna could have spent her entire childhood bouncing from foster home to foster home, only to find herself on the streets at eighteen years of age. I know Anna could have been abused in the system. I know how she may have turned out without stability in a home.

But what have we done? We have taken a small child with a suitcase full of baggage and added "Jewish" to the list of labels. And we - white parents - are raising a black child. Is this okay? Will she be alright?

Most of the time, I know it's fine. Anna is your normal, well-adjusted four year old. We, of course, think she's brilliant. I guess that makes us normal parents too.

But sometimes at night, when the truth comes out, Anna wants me to paint her tan. I tell her that G-d made us all a little different, but we are all just people, and we are all the same color on the inside. G-d (we usually say HaShem, which means "the Name" - the way most religious Jews tend to refer to G-d.) is a vague concept that she doesn't quite get, but we introduce the idea nonetheless. Her request has come in different forms, just as she has asked to be a boy when she grows up. I think it's certainly normal to some degree. But it really broke my heart last night when she asked me to take her to HaShem and ask him to make her tan.

I know it's a phase. I know she will grow through it, not out of it. I know we are the right parents for this child. I know we are providing her with a loving and caring home, and I know she loves us dearly. And I know, as much as I can, that we are doing the right things for her - living in a diverse community, going as a family to multicultural events, having siblings for her who are also "of color" and from the same background. But no one said it was going to be easy.