Well, I got my ball python (Molly) on January 9th. Since then, she's shed quite nicely and eaten twice. At night, I notice her snaking up the walls of her aquarium and looking at the lid. It doesn't appear to be "stargazing" and she usually moves to another location after a few seconds. She comes out during the day to look around also.

The problem is, whenever I go to pick her up, she acts scared and coils up. She's never bitten or struck at me, not even hissed. When I want to pick her up, I run my fingers over her back (about halfway down her back) to let her know that I'm not an attacker. This usually gets her to twitch, as if she's jerking away from me. She'll settle down after three or four strokes, but she will do everything she can to avoid being picked up. When I finally do get her in my hand, she squeezes slightly and eventually lets go enough to crawl through my fingers. After a minute or so of crawling, she tries to get away so I stick her back in her aquarium. So, am I doing something wrong?

I'm thinking that maybe I'm trying too hard to get her to like me (I try to pick her up once a day and hold her for about 10 minutes or so). Or maybe she's just not used to her new surroundings, but it's been a week and a half since I got her. I've tried holding her both in the morning and at night, and the result is the same. I really don't want her to be just a "display" snake, but I also don't want to stress her out with constant handling. Any ideas?