kicking and screaming

I haven't written a lot about my kid even though my kid takes up the majority of my life. And now I am going to go and write about the currently not so nice part about my kid. Please, of course, let me preface this with the statement that I love my kid beyond all things imaginable, she is amazing, brilliant and lovely, and she is incredibly adored by J-dog and myself.

But seriously - this temper tantrum thing is for shit. At 22 months, we've had a relatively easy go of it (I mean, I fell apart and lost my mind, but my kid seemed to be on track, breathing, eating, walking, laughing, and so on). Lately and out of nowhere, we'll get six or seven crying, hysterical, kicking, screaming tantrums A DAY. (an hour?). Being unused to children in general and certainly unused to those who will not be reasonable, it has caused us a bit of concern. While I KNOW it's normal/developmental/books talk about this/I really do know it's normal... I am really wanting MY response to be the right one. Right now I do not give in, and I step over the writhing body on the floor and leave the room. Sometimes she gets a time out depending on if the tantrum has resulted from something I asked her to do and she refused, like, say, wash some clothes or make dinner. kidding. After it's all said and done and she is once again in her own body we hold her and talk about what happened and why it isn't ok. She generally agrees and pats my on the shoulder in commiseration. Then we repeat the whole thing all over again in about an hour.

How do other people handle this sort of thing?