Learning to speak "boy"

Seems I need to learn how to speak, "boy."
I am sometimes startled at how my way of communicating with my sons can sometimes be so totally ineffective.
I don't want to get all Mars Vs. Venus here, but, case in point: I noticed my eldest was odd man out with some kids at the beach. He had been playing in a group and then he was suddenly by himself.
Everything OK? I ask.
Yeah. I just want to be by myself.
My mom antennae goes up.
Later, I overhear he does not like one of the older boys playing.
So what's going on? I ask.
Nothing. I just don't like him a little.
Why?
I don't know.
I can sense he wants me to back off and I do thankfully resist the urge to shine a bright light in his face and interrogate him into the night. But now I have my own head trash to deal with - Why won't he confide in me?? (Insert plaintive wail here.)
I tell my husband I think the big boy may have said something to our son.
He looks at me with a big "So?" stuck to his expression.
The next day in the car my husband says: So why don't you like so and so?
The answer comes at once.
"He called me a butt-off."
My son said he just walked away. His other friends said nothing.
Later I asked him why he couldn't tell me what he had told his dad so effortlessly?
You ask too many questions, he said.
This is true of course. But it is linked in my need for detail not in a need to badger. I loathe one word answers. I need words that can help me understand.
"It can be a little annoying, mom."
And so it goes.
My husband likes to tell me women speak 5,000 words more a day than a man. I don't know if this is true but I do know I have questions that need answers beyond yes and no and sometimes they happen to come into my head at midnight.
A friend once told me to be patient if you want to learn what is going on with your kids...do less talking and more listening. So, I have. It feels worthwhile and uncomfortable at the same time.
But my boys are ready to assist me.
My son wants me to hand over my Flip camera so he and his dad can give me video lessons on how to speak boy. My husband will star as me.
 My youngest chimes in that speaking boy is easy.
You just wave and say, hi in a very low voice that sounds a little like cookie monster.
But then a line is drawn in the sand.
"Mom, you can't ask me more than five questions a day."
That's a little much, I say. I am not willing to accept a question quota.
So we come to a mutual agreement.
Too many questions will get me the time-out sign.
I can live with that.
We fist bump instead of shake.