Christie,
I feel your pain (or stress rather), as I have 2 Caramels that I am assisting at the moment. The reaction of your snake sounds normal to me. I believe that they are just not sure what happened, and take a minute to figure out it's time to eat. I typically offer a live meal 7 days later, but wait at least 10-14 days before making another assisting attempt. This has worked well for me. I rarely have one that needs more than three assisst feedings, and have never had a snake need more than 5 assissts.

Hope that helps,