New here and looking for ideas

[robyn81478]

Good afternoon! New here, not new to herps although my experience is a bit stale. Over the years I’ve raised 17 snakes, 6 bearded dragons, 4 iguanas, a savannah monitor, veiled chameleons and turtles. I’ve had ball pythons, Burmese pythons, corn snakes, rat snakes, a western hognose, dumerils boa, Brazilian Rainbow Boas, Common and Columbian Boas, carpet pythons. This was all in my early to mid 20’s. Got married, had kids and unfortunately let the ex husband convince me that I needed to let go of all my babies and focus on the human babies. My children are now 17, 14 and 11. The 17 year old has her own Ball Python who’s name is Nelson and we’ve had him for 3 years. She got him for her 14th birthday and he’ll be off to college with her next year. My 14 year old son is not interested in reptiles. My 11 year old daughter has 2 leopard geckos – Casper and Beebo, who are 1. Since Nelson is going to college in August, my youngest wants her own snake. Please be assured she will not be the sole one responsible for the snake, as the mom the majority will fall on me. So I’m not just letting an 11 year old have a free for all with a reptile.

My problem is this. We’ve been narrowing down ideas of what to get for her first snake. Logically, we’ve come down to a corn snake or a ball python. However, since Nelson is a ball python, she wants something different to make it a little more her ‘own’. She’s keen on the idea of a corn snake and loves the butter morph. She really wants a carpet python but I’m a bit weary with nippiness as juveniles. I’m just wondering if there’s anything that I haven’t thought of for a first snake. My husband is 100% against a common or Columbian boa as in his opinion it will get “too big”. Although I think his definition of “too big” also concerns girth combined with length. I ran rosy boas and kingsnakes by her but she’s not very interested in those. We both tend to like a lot of head definition and the hefty body typical to a python/boa.

Any suggestions that aren’t the above? Any ideas out there that I haven’t thought of? Something out of the box that would be good for an (almost) 12 year old with a herp loving mom who knows that the majority of the responsibility will fall on me that has stale experience?