Something big happened in Jo Jo’s life this month… she really started communicating. Without using any words (yet), she is suddenly able to get her point across quite easily. She points, uses a variety of grunts and sounds, and also some signs. It’s pretty amazing that we’re now having a back-and-forth communication. For example, she desperately wants to get ahold of the Hindu statues sitting on the fireplace mantel. She points, and jumps, and whines. We tell her, “no no, sorry, you cannot have the statues.” She then goes on with her business. But when the cat jumped up onto the mantel, and we allowed this, she went ballistic, pointing to the cat and then the statues and making sounds that clearly said, “No fair! No fair! The cats are allowed to touch the statues and I’m not!”
She also displays a lot more knowledge of routines. For example, she places socks and shoes on and around her feet, and spends many minutes trying to figure out how to get them to go on. She puts jammies on top of her head, and brings diapers to us. She brushes her hair with a hair brush, feeds herself with a spoon from a bowl, and loves to put small objects into containers, experimenting to see which items will fit and which items will not.
Signs she can make:
Hi
Bye-Bye
All done
Eat
Blowing kisses (for night night and bye-bye)
No no (she shakes her head vigorously)
*We are now working on “more”, “please”, and “milk”
** From what I can tell from research, signing does not delay a child’s speech nor does it speed up language or communication abilities. It does, however, decrease frustration before the toddler can use words.
Words I know she understands:
Her name
Night-night (for bedtime and naps)
Ba-ba (bottle)
Yum-yum
Sockies (socks)
Kissies
Come here
Jump
Bam-bam-bam (for drumming)
Kitty and doggie
Mama and Ga-Ga
Mother of All Things 
This is kind amusing, right on the heels of your questioning if Jojo gets too much screen time (fwiw, my husband and I had experiences very much in line with your own, and our 3 enjoy tv, but will ditch the house to roam our 16 acres every chance they get) but we found a video series at our local library called “Baby Signing Time” and it has really helped us all learn more signs faster. It made a big difference for my 2.5 y/o in terms of less frustration when she was first learning to talk. It’s been fun for all of us to do together, and she loves watching it on her own from time to time too. Just thought you might enjoy it!
Yes to baby signing time! We’re on the opposite end of the spectrum to you in terms of screen time (don’t own a TV), but we loved baby signing time for teaching the kids (and us) signs.