The older a boy gets, the harder it is to be sure he's paying attention.

Other moms have warned me that when you talk to an adolescent boy — or worse, a proper teenager — you might as well just be talking to yourself. (With girls, apparently you just can't get a word in edgewise, but that's an issue for another day.)

My 12-year-old is one of those kids who, assuming he responds at all, can be so random in his answers, I sometimes wonder why I bother to ask the questions. He tells me things are taken care of when they're not, then lets me nag him to do stuff he's already done, ensuring that we're both frustrated on a regular basis. To make things worse, I can't even assume that he never listens because too often he surprises me with a question about something I've said that wasn't meant for his ears.

I can't tell if the confusion gets to him — he could just be hiding behind that impassive gaze he's perfected — but it's chipping away at my sanity day by day, except for a few seconds every morning when my son's refusal to acknowledge me adds a little sunshine to my day.

It's been a gradual evolution. When he was little, I walked my son to his classroom every morning. A few years ago, I started dropping him off at the door. For the past couple of years, though, I've suspected that if he didn't need me to drive him to school then he wouldn't ever let me near the campus.

Everything changed this year when his sister started kindergarten at the same school. The elementary and middle schools are in different buildings, so every morning after I park the car, my son bolts out to make sure that he's far, far away before his sister and I get all her things sorted and emerge from the car.

That doesn't mean that I don't see him, however.

Every morning, the entire school gets together for an assembly, which is when I need to leave my daughter's classroom so she can start her day. To my eternal amusement, my son's class is usually coming as I'm going.

Sometimes when we pass, I offer him a cheerful greeting. A couple of times, I've reached over to muss his hair.

Not only has he never responded, there have been a couple times when I've burst out laughing because he accidentally caught my eye and had to pretend he didn't to disguise his embarrassment that his mom not only existed, but was also standing right next to him. The horror!

I wonder what he thinks when some of his other classmates say hello to me, or worse, point me out to him, which means he has to ignore them, too. I'd ask him, but I know that's a question he'll never answer.

When she's not being a reporter, Treena Shapiro is busy with her real job, raising a son and daughter. Check out her blog at www.HonoluluAdvertiser.com/Blogs.