For now, Trevor is going to lead us on a short campaign before he leaves in a couple of weeks. As he's the only one to play 5th edition, we're having him be the DM. Although Rowen is younger than our other children were we started them, his enthusiasm is one of the driving forces for this particular family adventure.
Although we haven't actually started the campaign yet, just building my character brought out a great deal of joy. Sure, Romero is not going to see a lot of play time (until maybe next summer), but I enjoyed the process of deciding his background (a story-telling bard who has hit a midlife crisis and wants to be a part of adventures like the stories he tells--yes, this might be a bit close to home), his appearance (think Dr. Strange), and his abilities (he dabbles in magic to make his performances more impressive). We should get some play time in tomorrow.
There's something about creating new characters, whether for role-playing or for writing, that fills me with anticipation and joy (even if they ARE a bit derivative--especially about my own life). I used to roll stats and set up backgrounds for all kinds of characters that I never player or used in my writing. Come to think of it, it might be fun to both do that and also look over some of those old notes again.